UN-Egyptian Cooperation to Address Rising Number of Sudanese Refugees

UN-Egyptian meeting to launch the refugee support program (Egyptian Foreign Ministry)
UN-Egyptian meeting to launch the refugee support program (Egyptian Foreign Ministry)
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UN-Egyptian Cooperation to Address Rising Number of Sudanese Refugees

UN-Egyptian meeting to launch the refugee support program (Egyptian Foreign Ministry)
UN-Egyptian meeting to launch the refugee support program (Egyptian Foreign Ministry)

With the increasing number of Sudanese arrivals in Egypt, the UN Refugee Agency is working closely with Egyptian authorities to accommodate around 1.2 million refugees and asylum seekers who have fled the conflict in Sudan since April 2023.

On Tuesday, the Egyptian government, in collaboration with the United Nations and the European Union, launched a joint program to be implemented by the UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization, under the framework of the Joint Platform for Refugees and Migrants.

According to a statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the program, supported by a €12.2 million grant from the European Union, will work with the Egyptian government to meet essential needs in health and education, and to enhance resilience and protection for the most vulnerable refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers living in Egypt, as well as their host communities.

Cairo estimates the number of refugees, migrants, and foreign residents on its territory to be over 9 million.

Ambassador Amr Al-Jowaily, Assistant Foreign Minister for Multilateral Affairs and International Security, stated that Egypt "adopts a comprehensive approach that allows the integration of migrants and refugees into Egyptian society through a policy of not establishing camps and providing essential services."

He added: "We have high expectations that the program, with the valuable contributions of UN organizations and international partners, especially the European Union, will enhance coordination and direct funding to support national systems that provide essential services to migrants, refugees, and the host community, with a focus on education and healthcare, thereby integrating humanitarian and developmental dimensions."

Egypt is one of the main host countries in the region but faces unprecedented challenges due to global displacement, according to Elena Panova, the UN Resident Coordinator in Egypt. She emphasized that the responsibility of caring for and protecting displaced persons cannot fall solely on Egypt, but requires a collective response from the international community and local partners.

Christian Berger, the head of the European Union delegation to Egypt, reaffirmed the EU's continued support for Egypt's efforts to improve services for refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants, as well as to strengthen the resilience of host communities and explore opportunities for resettlement and safe, legal pathways for refugees in Egypt to the EU.

The UN joint program is based on recommendations from a 2022 report analyzing the status of educational and healthcare services provided to migrants and refugees in Egypt. The program will ensure the continued availability of essential protection services for the most vulnerable refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers, with host communities in selected areas also benefiting from it.

Cairo has expressed concern over the "immense burdens" it bears due to hosting millions on its soil. In May, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi spoke about the strain that "guests" — a term he often uses for migrants and refugees — place on his country’s limited resources, particularly water. He noted that they "consume about 4.5 billion cubic meters of water annually," given Egypt's average water consumption of 500 cubic meters per person, calling it a "significant burden."

According to Hanan Hamdan, head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Egypt, the country has received around 1.2 million refugees and asylum seekers from Sudan.

In a televised statement on Tuesday, Hamdan confirmed that coordination with Egypt is ongoing to accommodate the increasing number of Sudanese refugees. She added that registered refugees with the UNHCR number around 800,000 from various nationalities, the majority of whom are Sudanese.

Dr. Ayman Zohry, migration and refugee expert, told Asharq Al-Awsat that part of the European grant to Cairo is expected to support services provided by the Egyptian government to refugees, such as education and healthcare. Additionally, a portion may be allocated as direct financial or in-kind support, such as the distribution of food and other goods.



Syrian Opposition Fighters Take the Homes of Assad's Officers

A family member waits for workers to move his family's belongings, following evacuation orders from factions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), after Syria's Bashar Assad was ousted, on the outskirts of Damascus, in Syria, December 29, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
A family member waits for workers to move his family's belongings, following evacuation orders from factions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), after Syria's Bashar Assad was ousted, on the outskirts of Damascus, in Syria, December 29, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
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Syrian Opposition Fighters Take the Homes of Assad's Officers

A family member waits for workers to move his family's belongings, following evacuation orders from factions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), after Syria's Bashar Assad was ousted, on the outskirts of Damascus, in Syria, December 29, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
A family member waits for workers to move his family's belongings, following evacuation orders from factions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), after Syria's Bashar Assad was ousted, on the outskirts of Damascus, in Syria, December 29, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

Families of military officers who served under Syria's ousted Bashar Assad are being evicted from their subsidized housing at a compound outside Damascus to make way for victorious former opposition fighters and their families, residents and fighters there said.

The Muadamiyat al-Sham compound housing hundreds of people in over a dozen buildings is one of several such areas set aside for officers under Assad's rule, according to Reuters.

As the military is being restructured around the former opposition forces, with Assad-era officers demobilized, the evictions from military housing are not a surprise.

But their rapid replacement in the accommodation by fighters who spent years in impoverished, rural opposition-held territory shows the sudden reversal of fortune for supporters of each side in the conflict.

Names of factions under the main victorious group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which captured the capital on Dec. 8, are scrawled in spray paint on the entrances to buildings, apparently marking them out for fighters from each entity.

Three fighters at the compound, four women who have been residing there and a local official providing documents to those leaving said officers' families had been given five days to go.

“We will start moving our children's schools, starting our lives over. I am very sad, my heart is broken, it's our lives, my children's lives,” said Budour Makdid, 38, the wife of a former military intelligence officer living in Muadamiyat al-Sham.

Makdid's husband, who has signed papers recognizing the new authorities and handed over his gun, has already returned to his family home in Latakia province, a former Assad stronghold, and Makdid and their children would join him there, she said.

Like other families leaving the area, she needed a document from the municipal authorities to say the family was leaving the accommodation and giving permission to remove their belongings.

Local administrator Khalil al-Ahmad, 69, said families had started approaching him several days ago seeking the document and that around 200 requests for one had been made so far.

Ahmad said he had not been officially contacted by the new administration about the change, and was only made aware of it when residents began to ask him for the documents.

Displaced

Any sign of how Syria's new administration intends to handle former Assad officers, as well as property rights, will be closely watched in a country where millions of people have been displaced since civil war erupted in 2011.

Earlier this month, HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa was filmed requesting the residents of his family's former home in Damascus to leave and allow his own family to move back.

Some former military families living near the Muadamiyat al-Sham compound but not in the subsidized units from which officers are being evicted are also leaving.

Eidye Zaitoun, 52, was packing her belongings into black plastic bags as she prepared to leave her two-room apartment for the coast. She said her son in the military had moved to the coast too and there was no reason for her to stay.

HTS fighters at the compound were not sympathetic, according to Reuters.