A UN official said on Thursday that the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has failed to find a solution to the problem of Sudanese asylum- seekers who have been staging a sit-in at a park here over the past three months.

UNHCR Assistant Regional Representative Damtew Dessalegne said the UNHCR could not meet the demand of the Sudanese asylum-seekers for resettling in countries outside Egypt.

"Our talks have failed because we could not satisfy protester demands to be resettled outside Egypt. It was up to the Egyptian government to find a solution," he said.

Meanwhile, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit told Sudanese Ummah Party leader Sadek al-Mahdi, who has been negotiating an end for the sit-in with the Sudanese protesters, that intensified efforts must be done to end the sit-in as soon as possible.

"Despite keenness on preserving our special ties with Sudanese brothers in the north and the south, Egypt would not be able to endure the sit-in to continue any longer," the minister said.

Dessalegne declined to comment on the means the Egyptian government could employ to resolve the situation, saying refugees have a right to choose the state they want to live in.

The problem of the Sudanese refugees, whose number ranges between 2,500 to 3,000, started in September when 20 persons started the sit-in.

Some of the Sudanese are from the western region of Darfur, where thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced since 2003 by fighting between locals and the government.

Others are among the 4 million Sudanese who were displaced during a north-south civil war that lasted over 20 years.

A peace deal brought the longest-running civil war in Africa to an end in January, allowing many Sudanese to return home. However, some protesters said returning was unsafe as the deal was fragile.

Source: Xinhua