Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt

		31 Oct. - 6 Nov. 2002 Issue No. 610 Home news	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Recommend this page

Prisoners' choice

EGYPTIAN officials have compiled a list of Egyptian nationals imprisoned in Iraq who are to be released in the near future, following Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's declaration of a general amnesty last week, reports Soha Abdelaty. The list includes 172 Egyptians who were incarcerated on various charges. After being released, 38 of the prisoners will have one month to pay fines to the Iraqi authorities, in accordance with the sentences issued against them. Ahead of most of the released prisoners, however, is the decision of whether to return to Egypt or remain in Iraq.
Former prisoners who wish to return to Egypt will be required to report first to the Egyptian embassy in Iraq which will, in turn, check with security officials in Cairo to confirm that the person is indeed an Egyptian citizen. Farouk Ghoneim, assistant minister for consular affairs and for the affairs of Egyptians living abroad, explained the reason for the procedures. "The problem is that there are individuals of other nationalities who claim to be Egyptians" -- something that happened during the Gulf War in 1991.
Several people, Egyptian officials speculated, would prefer to stay in Iraq. "Workers may view their presence in Iraq as an opportunity to look for work," Ghoneim explained. "This is despite the difficult circumstances that they are living under and various dangers that threaten them," he added. And even though war is looming in Iraq, Egyptian authorities have not been notified that any of their nationals wish to return to their homeland.
There are no official numbers for Egyptians living in Iraq, or even outside Egypt. "The problem is that some of these Egyptian citizens have assimilated into Iraqi society and married Iraqi women," Ghoneim explained. "And when we ask Iraqi authorities about them, they refuse our enquiries, telling us that these men are Iraqi citizens," he added.
Egyptian officials claim they have a general idea of the number of their citizens living in other countries. However, many Egyptian citizens living abroad do not inform missions of their presence in a given country, as they are requested to do. "This is a major problem we face," Ghoneim said.
Another collapse

ELEVEN people were killed and 10 seriously injured on Sunday when a building collapsed in the low-income Cairo suburb of Al-Warraq in Giza. The five- storey building was being renovated when it collapsed. The building's late owner was a 50-year-old government employee, whose wife was found dead in the rubble.
It is unclear how many people were in the building, which contained eight flats. On Monday, the bodies of a 30-year-old mother clutching her two daughters were discovered.
Building collapses in Egypt are often caused by faulty construction or the unauthorised addition of extra storeys.
Deadly weather
TWO women were killed Monday when a thunderstorm struck the southern province of Sohag. Sharbat Fouad, 45, and Samreya Zakareya, 42, were with their husbands working in a corn-field when a violent sandstorm swept through the area only to be followed by a thunderstorm and heavy rain. The two women died on their way to hospital.
Thunderstorms also hit Luxor and Aswan this week, causing an electricity cut and uprooting trees.

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