By Samer Elatrash

Cairo - A young Sudanese girl of about four died when Egyptian police fought on Friday with thousands of Sudanese demanding to be allowed to start new lives abroad.

Witnesses at the scene said there were about six unconscious Sudanese, some of them young children, lying on the ground after police used force to clear about 3 500 people who had camped in squalid conditions for over two months.

A doctor at the site who examined the girl who was brought to him after being found unconscious said: "She's dead."

Puddles of blood were visible

About 2 000 riot police stormed the camp site and beat the people inside with truncheons and sticks after officials failed to persuade the Sudanese to board buses to take them to another site.

About 4 000 riot police in total ringed the site in an affluent part of Cairo near the offices of the UN agency that deals with refugees.

The protesters had refused to clear the area after police fired water cannons on them, demanding that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) arrange for them to be flown out of Egypt.

"Let the United Nations arrange to take us to another country," said one Sudanese protester who gave his name as Wilson.

"Most Sudanese refugees have been subjected to violence in Egypt. We don't want to be here anymore," he said.

Puddles of blood were visible on the pavement as the Sudanese men in the camp fought back with sticks and hurled bottles at the riot police. An ambulance arrived to take away one policeman who suffered a bloody nose.

The UNHCR has said it is prepared to provide more assistance to Sudanese in Egypt fleeing conflict at home but cannot arrange for all of them to be resettled in another country.

Sudan's 21-year-long north-south civil war made four million homeless and a separate conflict in the western Darfur region has turned another two million into refugees.

A January peace agreement ended the north-south civil war but many Sudanese say it is not safe to return home as the deal is fragile.

A UNHCR spokesperson said the agency had been in contact with the Egyptian authorities about the protesters.

"The UNHCR has told the Egyptian authorities in meetings that the situation should be dealt with peacefully," Astrid Van Genderen Stort said.

Egyptian police had not told UNHCR officials they would attempt to move the Sudanese protesters on Thursday morning, she added.

Published on the Web by IOL on 2005-12-30 00:30:04