TYRE, Lebanon, April 8 (AFP)Fifteen Kurds, who slipped across the Lebanese border
 into Israel last month before being deported back, left Beirut early Sunday morning for political
 asylum in Sweden, officials said.

 The United Nations furnished the 15 Kurds with travel documents and visas for Sweden and
 took them to the Beirut airport overnight, a Lebanese security official said.

 A Lebanese official told AFP that Sweden was granting them political asylum "for humanitarian
 reasons."

 The Kurds -- including four men, eight women and three children who lived in Lebanon several
 years -- had slipped into Israel on March 25 seeking better living conditions.

 But the Israeli authorities expelled them to Lebanon where the Kurds stayed with the Fijian
 contingent of the United Nations Interim Forces in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL).

 According to the Lebanese police, the Kurds were daily farm workers in Sarada, a village
 located some two kilometres (one mile) from the central sector of the border between Lebanon
 and Israel.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com