UN must establish fact-finding mission on Sinai mass grave, Ahmed Salem tells Human Rights Council

An oral intervention delivered today by CIHRS with the cooperation of SFHR before the UN Human Rights Council - 60th Sessions, Geneva on the newly uncovered mass graves in Sinai Peninsula

The Oral Intervention text: 

Mr. President, Special Rapporteur,
 

I speak as one of the Indigenous people of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.  As we meet today, genocide rages in Gaza, children starved and bombed, families massacred, and withPalestinians pushed toward Sinai through mass killings, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement. We, the indigenous people of Sinai, know this pain: over 150,000 of us have been uprooted under Egypt’s so-called counterterrorism campaigns, and still we are denied the right to return.

Investigations by the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, corroborated by independent analysis from Forensic Architecture, has uncovered, for the first time,  a mass grave in the Sinai containing over 300 bodies, along with new incidents of extrajudicial executions of civilians, during the nearly decade-long armed conflict between 2013 and 2022.  These incidents constitute war crimes, and possible crimes against humanity.

The evidence is overwhelming. Satellite imagery, on-site footage, field visits, excavations, and eyewitness testimonyies—including from individuals who worked alongside security forces—reveal a pattern of enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, torture, and execution.

The Egyptian authorities live in a parallel world of denial. Just as they refuse to acknowledge our mass displacement and the thousands of political prisoners, they also deny extrajudicial killings, despite leaked videos showing Egyptian army soldiers executing handcuffed detainees.

We call on the Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Rights and other mandate holders to immediately take up this issue.  In addition, this Council should take urgent action to  establish an independent international fact-finding mission to investigate these violations, pursue accountability, and seek reparations for victims’ families. The Egyptian authorities must finally acknowledge and begin a national process of accountability  for  atrocities committed in Sinai and elsewhere in the country.

Thank you.