Sudanese authorities have deported about 30 Eritreans, including at least six registered refugees, a human rights organization said today, claiming the UN refugee agency was denied access to the group. 

Many Eritreans flee the country to escape a military draft that requires all citizens under 50 to serve in the military for years.

Anyone of draft age leaving the country without permission risks up to five years in prison.

On May 1, 2014, Sudanese authorities in eastern Sudan handed 30 Eritreans over to Eritrean security forces, according to advocates who were in contact with the deported group.

Human Rights Watch says the group was arrested in early February near the Libyan border and detained for three months without charge and without access to the UN refugee agency.

The rights group is calling on the Sudanese government to end such deportations and protect Eritreans. Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher at the rights organization, says the deported Eritreans “serious risk of detention and abuse at the hands of a brutal government.” 

The rights group points out that international law forbids countries from deporting asylum seekers without first allowing them to apply for asylum and considering their cases.

It is also reported that a group of about 600 Ethiopians, Eritreans, Somalis, and Sudanese nationals attempting to cross the border to Libya were arrested on 3 May.

They said the police had taken them to the town of Dongola, about 500 kilometers north of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, where they were charged and convicted of immigration offenses.

On May 4, Sudanese media reported that a court in Dongola had convicted 600 people and ordered all the Eritreans in the group to be deported to Eritrea.

This larger group also therefore risks deportation.

Photo: Map of Eritrean refugee camps in eastern Sudan showing key routes relating to trafficking of Eritreans (HRW) 

Related: 

‘I Wanted to Lie Down and Die’: Trafficking of Eritreans in Sudan (HRW, Feb. 2014)