Ten Sudanese migrants, including children, have died as Cairo police broke up a makeshift protest camp, Egypt's interior ministry says.

Riot police fired water cannon at the Sudanese protesters, who had been refusing to leave the camp, set up in September near United Nations offices.

A stampede was reported as police forced hundreds of people onto buses.

The migrants had been demanding that the UN refugee agency place them in a country with better conditions.

But the UNHCR said it had no power to guarantee their demands were met.

Thousands of police armed with sticks and shields stormed the small park where the migrants had been camping, at about 0500 (0300 GMT).

"There was a stampede that left 30 of the protesters injured, most of them the elderly and young and they were immediately taken to the hospital where 10 of them died," the interior ministry said.

Twenty-three police officers were wounded, the interior ministry said, accusing migrant leaders of inciting attacks against the police.

"Attempts have been made to convince them to disperse, but to no avail," the ministry statement said.

Witnesses said the migrants, including women and small children, were dragged towards buses as they tried to resist leaving the camp.

"They want to kill us," shouted one protester. "Our demands are legitimate, it is our right to protest here, the only right we have."

One of the Sudanese asylum-seekers, Napoleon Roberts, spoke to the BBC from one of the buses which had travelled to a desert area outside Cairo.

"Hundreds have been wounded and I don't know how to describe (it) to you. They just brought us here, we don't know what's going to happen after this. People are just mourning because of the dead," he told the Network Africa programme.

Protesters' demands

Up to 3,000 protesters had been living at the camp since it was set up on 29 September, many of them sleeping in the open.

The demonstration began after the UNHCR stopped aid to those who had applied and failed to get refugee status.

Since the makeshift camp was set up, several people have died and a number of babies have been born.

A spokeswoman for the UNHCR, Astrid Stort, told Network Africa the agency had offered the migrants everything that was in its power.

"We have tried to convince them that some of their demands could be met but other demands were unrealistic," she said.

"Resettlement is something that is at the discretion of resettlement countries."

The UNHCR says it has to prioritise help for people genuinely at risk of persecution and cannot solve issues of discrimination and deprivation in Egypt, where unemployment is high.

It believes most of the demonstrators are economic migrants rather than those fleeing persecution, and so do not qualify as refugees.

But many of the protesters argue it is not safe to return to Sudan, despite the signing of a peace accord nearly a year ago which ended the 21-year north-south civil war.

A separate conflict in the western region of Darfur has displaced some two million people and left tens of thousands dead.

PHOTO CAPTION

A Sudanese refugee man who appeared to be dead, lies motionless on the ground surrounded by riot police, after Egyptian security troops fired water cannons and stormed the protest camp housing hundreds of Sudanese refugees where they had lived for three months demanding resettlement outside of Egypt, in Cairo, Egypt Friday, Dec. 30, 2005. (AP)

Source: BBC