Belgium Temporarily Suspends the Return of Migrants to Sudan

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said he was temporarily suspending the return of migrants to Sudan. This decision is made because of the doubts that the returnees were beaten, tortured and deprived of their liberty.

These doubts were made yesterday in local media quoted by the international human rights organization Amnesty International. In September, in Belgium, a delegation from the Sudanese Interior Ministry, who interviewed 158 of his compatriots, arrived illegally in the EU.

Belgium and Sudan have signed an agreement on the return of illegally infiltrated Belgian land. Human rights defenders then recalled that Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir was wanted by the International Criminal Court with charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in connection with the events in Darfur.

According to reports in the media, the questioning of Sudanese returning from Brussels was in Arabic, but the Belgian representative did not know the Sudanese dialect and did not know if threats were being made against them. All those who reported to have been tortured and detained were in the group of those questioned in Belgium.

Belgian lawyers today report a police order in Brussels indicating that there are quotas for migrant retention in the city. Interior Minister Jan Yambon denied the existence of such a document earlier to parliament.