Sisi: Regional, Int’l Reality Imposes ‘Complex Challenges’ on Egypt

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (Egyptian Presidency)
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (Egyptian Presidency)
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Sisi: Regional, Int’l Reality Imposes ‘Complex Challenges’ on Egypt

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (Egyptian Presidency)
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (Egyptian Presidency)

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Tuesday that the current regional and international reality imposes new challenges and complex situations on Egypt, but then affirmed that his country will overcome this turbulent phase.

In a speech on the occasion of the 72nd anniversary of the July 23 Revolution, Sisi spoke of the repercussions of the regional wars now raging in the Gaza Strip and Sudan.

He mentioned the situation in the region such as wars, conflicts, civil strife, state fragmentation, institutional collapse, humanitarian catastrophes, famine outbreaks, and massive displacement.

“These unprecedented circumstances add tremendous burdens on Egypt, which can only be alleviated by my firm belief in the strength, resilience, unity, and cohesion of our great people who stand as a single structure, supporting each other, in the face of adversity,” Sisi said.

He affirmed that Egypt will overcome this turbulent phase, and continue its path towards progress, development, as well as building the nation.

“Egypt has kept pace with the changes of time, opening to the world and striving to enhance its economic, investment, urban, and industrial capabilities,” Sisi said.

He added that his country has also integrated into the global trade system while focusing on protecting the national economy as much as possible from the fluctuations and shocks of the global economy.

“This has been achieved through comprehensive and effective systems, offering the necessary social protection,” Sisi said.

The Egyptian President also renewed his country’s support for the Palestinians, affirming intensively working to support their legitimate right to an independent and sovereign state.



Families of Disappeared in Syria Want the Search to Continue on Conflict’s 14th Anniversary

 Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)
Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)
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Families of Disappeared in Syria Want the Search to Continue on Conflict’s 14th Anniversary

 Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)
Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)

Family members of Syrians who disappeared in the 14-year civil war on Sunday gathered in the city of Daraa and called on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them.

The United Nations in 2021 estimated that over 130,000 Syrians were taken away and disappeared, many of them detained by Bashar al-Assad's network of intelligence agencies, as well as by opposition fighters and the extremist ISIS group. Advocacy group The Syrian Campaign says some 112,000 are still missing to this day.

When opposition led by group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham overthrew President Bashar Assad in April, they stormed prisons and released detainees from the ousted government's dungeons.

Families of the missing quickly rushed to the prisons seeking their loved ones. While there were some reunions, rescue services also discovered mass graves around the country and used whatever remains they could retrieve to identify the dead.

Wafa Mustafa held a placard of her father, Ali, who was detained by the Assad government's security forces in 2013. She fled a week later to Germany, fearing she would also be detained, and hasn't heard from him since.

Like many other Syrians who fled the conflict or went into exile for their activism, she often held protests and rallied in European cities. Now, she has returned twice since Assad's ouster, trying to figure out her father's whereabouts.

“I’m trying, feeling both hope and despair, to find any answer on the fate of my father,” she told The Associated Press. “I searched inside the prisons, the morgues, the hospitals, and through the bodies of the martyrs, but I still couldn’t find anything.”

A United Nations-backed commission on Friday urged the government led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa to preserve evidence and anything they can document from prisons in the ongoing search for the disappeared and to pursue perpetrators.

Some foreign nationals are missing in Syria as well, notably American journalist Austin Tice, whose mother visited Syria in January and met with al-Sharaa. Tice has not been heard from other than a video released weeks after his disappearance in 2012 that showed him blindfolded and held by armed men.

Syria’s conflict started as one of the popular uprisings of the so-called 2011 Arab Spring, before Assad crushed the largely peaceful protests and a civil war erupted. Half a million people have been killed and more than 5 million left the country as refugees.