KHARTOUM, May 6 (Reuters) - An Iraqi refugee in Sudan climbed a tall telecommunications antenna on Sunday and hoisted a Canadian flag to protest at the U.N. refugee agency's refusal to send him to Canada. Hesham Faleh, 20, climbed the 30-metre antenna at 3:00 a.m. (2400 GMT) carrying the flag, a bottle of water and a hat to protect him from Khartoum's scorching sun, his wife said. "I want him to come down. I spoke with him through a loudspeaker twice but he would not listen," Samira Youssef, herself an Eritrean refugee, told Reuters. "He wants to attract attention to his problem." Scores of onlookers gathered near the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to watch Faleh. Youssef, 20, said her husband had fled Iraq after the fall of Baghdad in 2003. The United Nations granted him refugee status in Sudan and he later applied to be resettled in Canada. "On April 30, I got my rejection letter. And he got his on May 3. It was a shock for him," Youssef said. The UNHCR declined to comment. The United Nations says around 2 million Iraqis have been displaced inside the country since the invasion, while the others are being sheltered in neighbouring countries, mainly Syria and Jordan.
