CAIRO, Dec 30: Some 2,000 Egyptian riot police stormed a camp of Sudanese refugees on Friday, sparking clashes that left at least 23 Sudanese dead and more than 100 policemen and others injured, officials and witnesses said.

Witnesses said police beat those in the camp with truncheons after officials had failed to persuade them to board buses to move them from an affluent part of Cairo to another site.

The interior ministry said the Sudanese died in a stampede at the camp, where 3,500 Sudanese live in squalid conditions. It said 75 police officers were injured.

Pools of blood were visible on the pavement as men in the camp fought back with sticks and hurled bottles at the police, who fired water cannon to try to disperse them, witnesses said.

Police swept into the camp to break up a 3-month sit-in to demand that the Sudanese refugees be moved to another country.

An interior ministry source said 23 protesters died and a refugee spokesman said the toll could be higher. The health ministry said 50 Sudanese were injured.

Egyptian television showed footage of several injured policemen in a hospital.

About 4,000 policemen ringed the site, near the offices of the UN refugee agency, where the Sudanese were protesting what they said was poor treatment since they fled Sudan’s lengthy civil war.

The UNHCR has said it is prepared to help Sudanese in Egypt but cannot arrange for all of them to resettle in another country because many are looking for a better life and are not refugees fleeing a conflict.—Reuters