IHRP: HRIF 18 - Lung, Street in Fayoum

Human Rights in Focus

Street in Fayoum
Photographer: Lucas Lung

Location: Fayoum, Egypt

In 2003, I completed a summer internship with the head office of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. I was asked to draft a report on the insecurities of the Burundian refugee community in Egypt for submission to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The community was comprised of 57 principal claimants, and around a dozen or so dependents. The objective of the report was to demonstrate that this group of Burundians could neither return home nor remain in Egypt, and should therefore receive immediate recognition under the UNHCR mandate, and be referred for resettlement without delay. One cannot listen to first-hand accounts of persecution and racially-motivated violence on the streets of Cairo without being affected. The latter, in particular, affected me: it made me see a country, which I had grown to love over the last few years, in a very different light.