Geneva, 28 November 2025 — The Committee for Justice participated in the 18th session of the United Nations Forum on Minority Issues, held on 27–28 November 2025 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
Usame Mehmetoglu, CFJ’s UN and Regional Communications Officer, delivered an oral statement under Item 3 of the programme of work, highlighting the urgent human rights concerns facing minority communities in Egypt and Sudan.
In his intervention, Mehmetoglu underscored the severe and long-standing patterns of marginalization affecting the Bedouin communities in Egypt’s North Sinai. Drawing on documented evidence that more than 150,000 Bedouins have been displaced internally over the past decade under counterterrorism operations, alongside reports of enforced disappearance, arbitrary arrest, torture, and extrajudicial killings. He emphasized that recent revelations of mass graves in North Sinai further demonstrate the gravity of violations faced by the Bedouins.
He also drew attention to the ongoing atrocities committed against minority communities in Sudan’s Darfur region — including the Masalit, Bartee, Fur, and Zaghawa among others — who continue to face genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity at the hands of the Rapid Support Forces and affiliated militias. He stressed that while mechanisms such as the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan exist, they require far greater support to ensure that victims’ testimonies are preserved and their voices reflected in future justice processes.
CFJ called on the forum and member states of the human rights council to urge Egypt and the authorities in Sudan to ensure accountability for these violations, guarantee minority communities’ meaningful participation in shaping their future, and advancing legal amendments that formally recognize and protect them as minority groups. The statement also encouraged renewed efforts toward establishing an international treaty on minority rights.
CFJ remains committed to advocating for victims of human rights violations across North Africa and The Sahel, and to working with UN mechanisms to advance justice, accountability.