BRUSSELS, July 26: Five hunger-striking Afghan refugees protesting their expulsion from Belgium were taken to hospital on Saturday as around 270 others continued to occupy a church in the heart of Brussels.

The refugees, who include 120 children, began gathering in the church, in a residential quarter, on Thursday in protest against the Belgian authorities’ refusal to grant them political asylum.

The Belgian Red Cross treated 20 people in the church who were feeling unwell and took five people to hospital for treatment, according to the Belga agency.

Authorities had feared that sanitary conditions in the church would rapidly decline, but on Saturday an official said that the sanitary situation was under control. The government insists that the situation in Afghanistan has stabilized, and it is therefore safe for the refugees to return.

But the Amnesty International said last month that the security situation across Afghanistan had steadily deteriorated this year and that it was “unlikely that repatriation (of refugees) can be promoted in the foreseeable future”.

More than 1,000 Afghan refugees were estimated to have received notices from the Belgian government this month ordering them to leave the country within three to nine months.

But those inside the church, many of them long-established in Belgium, have declared that they will maintain their sit-in until they receive permanent residency rights. —AFP