‘Misplaced priorities’: NGO accuses Hong Kong authorities of neglecting food, shelter needs of asylum seeker and 4 daughters despite education access
- Nermen Amer, 41, and her four daughters arrived in the city last year after fleeing their home in Egypt
- NGO Refugee Union says authorities have allowed the children to to go to school, but refuse to provide subsidies for basic needs
An NGO has accused Hong Kong authorities of misplaced priorities after they refused to provide an asylum seeker and her four daughters subsidies for food and shelter but allowed the children to go to school, a move that has left the family “desperate”.
“The fact that the Immigration Department allows them to go to school but does not allow them to eat surely indicates that their priorities are wrong,” a spokesman from the NGO Refugee Union said.
“They have been made extremely destitute and desperate because they were allowed to enter [the city] without humanitarian assistance.”
The Muslim Brotherhood is a transnational group of Sunni Islamists known for practising sharia law.
Upon arrival, they were detained at Hong Kong International Airport. Amer said they were released into the city on recognisance after three days when the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) wrote a letter supporting their right to seek asylum.
