2024-04-25 11:33:03
- Author, Hisham Al-Mayani
- Role, BBC News – Cairo
-
2 hours ago
“Who could imagine that this could happen to a child who wears diapers? He is not a human being, he is a predatory beast,” is how Maryam, the mother of Sudanese baby Janet Jumaa, put it his feelings towards the young Egyptian. whom the family accuses of kidnapping their daughter, sexually assaulting her, then killing her.
In an apartment located on the top floor of a 15-storey building in the “Ezbet El Haggana” district, adjacent to the Nasr City district, east of Cairo, the BBC met the family of young Sudanese Janet, who He was only ten months old.
Father Jumaa and Mother Maryam sat among dozens of Sudanese women who came to comfort them, and everyone sang Christian hymns.
Maryam holds her five-year-old daughter, Amira, who witnessed the incident, as she recounts what happened. She said she was taking a nap in her apartment the day of the incident, while leaving her little girl with other children. at a relative’s downstairs.
She goes on to say that they suddenly discovered that “the baby was missing and the door to their loved one’s apartment was open unusually.”
Maryam adds: “My daughter Amira was silent and terrified and didn’t say anything, but after some trouble she said she saw a young Egyptian man take the baby from the door of their relative’s apartment and go downstairs the stairs and the baby had cried. , but Amira was scared so she didn’t tell anyone.
Comment on the photo, “Jomaa”, the girl’s father, shows the place where he found his little girl’s body
Father Jumaa recounts the details of the conversation, saying: “We started searching the entire building and knocked on the doors of all the residents, and they all opened for us. We searched and did not find the baby in their possession except. an apartment on the thirteenth floor whose resident did not open the door to us.
He continued that he went to the police station to report, but they told him that 24 hours had to pass before a report could be made in accordance with Egyptian law.
He confirmed that he was returning from the police station and refused to wait and began searching nearby properties and streets until he found Janet’s body in a dump in the one of the gardens at the back of the property where she resides.
Father Jumaa added: “I hugged my daughter crying, but she was dead, with traces of sexual assault on her. The criminal raped her, killed her by suffocation, then carried her in a bag and threw her in the trash. »
Comment on the photo, The girl’s father remembers what happened to his daughter while crying
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The Egyptian Public Prosecutor’s Office is currently investigating the incident, which sparked shock and anger in Egyptian society and among Sudanese people, and recalled a similar horrific crime committed in 2017 against an Egyptian child in Dakahlia governorate. , north of Cairo. She was known in the media as “Pampers Baby”, where she was murdered. The accused was arrested and brought to court. He was sentenced to death “urgently” and the sentence was carried out.
The Egyptian Public Prosecutor’s Office has not issued any official statement on the investigation into the incident of Sudanese girl Janet, even though five days have passed since the investigation began, although local media have reported, citing judicial sources, that he had decided to detain the accused for four days pending the hearing.
Ahmed Hajjaj, the lawyer for the Sudanese victim’s family, confirmed to the BBC that the accused lives in the same building as the Sudanese girl’s family and admitted to committing the crimes of kidnapping, assault and murder during the investigation, part of which the lawyer was present.
Millions of refugees and migrants in Egypt
Comment on the photo, The incident shocked members of the Sudanese community in Egypt.
Gomaa and his wife Maryam confirm that they and their family are not refugees, but legally residing in Egypt. They arrived in Cairo before the outbreak of Sudan’s latest war last year, but the area in which they reside is full of Sudanese refugees. fleeing the war.
While confirming that the Public Prosecutor’s Office heard their statements and that their daughter, Amira, identified the accused in investigations, they stressed that they and other Sudanese are victims of street harassment, including intimidation based on skin color, emphasizing that “several crimes have been committed against Sudanese without the possibility of finding their perpetrators and punishing them.
The BBC has not been able to verify these claims separately.
Human Rights Watch accuses Egyptian authorities of failing to protect vulnerable refugee and asylum-seeking women from sexual violence, including failing to investigate rapes and sexual assaults.
At the same time, Egyptian authorities characterize Human Rights Watch reports as politicized and based on unknown sources and inaccurate information.
Egypt hosts around nine million migrants and refugees, including around four million Sudanese, according to the latest estimates from the United Nations International Organization for Migration.
Transnational crime
Comment on the photo, The child’s mother, Janet, receives condolences at her home in Cairo
“While this is a rare crime, it is horrific, heinous, sad and threatening to society as a whole, whether it was committed against a young Egyptian or Sudanese girl, and the circumstances that allowed that this happens against a young Sudanese girl will allow it to happen tomorrow against an Egyptian woman. It is a crime that does not distinguish between one nationality and another,” Nour Khalil, founder of the Platform for Refugees in Egypt, told the BBC.
The Platform for Refugees in Egypt – a human rights initiative that addresses the rights of refugees – said in a statement on Sunday that security services have intensified the search for the accused, looking at the recordings from surveillance cameras near the area where the victim and his body disappeared. was later found, in order to identify the accused who committed the crime.
The platform called for working to ensure a fair trial for the victim and protective measures for her family, in light of the escalation of crimes of sexual violence based on racism, according to the statement’s description.
Khalil stressed that this crime sends several messages and highlights the need for a law to protect children and women in Egypt, especially regarding sexual violence.
He added: “More than 120 crimes of sexual assault against children have been monitored in Egypt in recent months. The reason lies in the social problems that the state must solve, and part of them is related to legislation and laws. lack of protection of children, particularly against sexual violence within the family.
He pointed out that this incident also indicates the unusual circumstances to which refugees, especially those of African nationality, are exposed, linked to the problem of the difficulty of pleading for refugees in the crimes to which they are exposed, whether sexual or otherwise. a vulnerable group for many reasons, the most important being the lack of documentation and legal status allowing them to easily obtain their rights.
Khalil said this encourages perpetrators to see that refugees or foreigners, especially those of African nationality, are groups without rights and that those who commit crimes against them easily escape punishment.
But at the same time, Khalil pointed out that there are many cases in which police have investigated and won cases against refugees or foreigners, the most famous being that of May 2021, when children from South Sudan were kidnapped and attacked in Egypt, and a video was posted on social media, the authorities took action and arrested the perpetrators. They punished them, but “the general impression before society is that foreigners, especially people of color, are a vulnerable group and are easily attacked and escape punishment.”
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