Sudanese Refugees in Egypt Need Support, Not Further Entrapment

The ongoing civil war in Sudan has displaced more than 3 million individuals since fighting erupted in April. Roughly 700,000 people have sought protection across international borders; of those, more than 250,000 Sudanese civilians — as well as refugees from other countries that were being hosted in Sudan — have crossed into Egypt.

Egypt’s recent currency depreciation coupled with record inflation means that these arrivals face a challenging economic environment, as well as a securitized political climate. Rather than further entrapping refugees in Egypt, international assistance — particularly from Europe — should focus on building up the grassroots efforts supporting these newcomers.

Complex Bilateral Relations

Egypt and the areas now containing Sudan and South Sudan have a long and intertwined history. The 1976 Wadi El Nil bilateral agreement formalized cooperation between Egypt and Sudan, and up until 1995, Sudanese nationals enjoyed relative ease of travel to and residence in Egypt. That year, the Egyptian government blamed an attempted assassination of former President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the Sudanese regime, and the Egyptian government began to treat Sudanese nationals residing in Egypt as foreigners, requiring them to apply for entry visas and residency permits.[1] Relations improved in 2004, when Egypt and Sudan signed the Four Freedoms agreement, which was meant to guarantee freedom of movement, residency, work, and property ownership for citizens of both countries.

While implementation of the Four Freedoms agreement has consistently fallen short over the past two decades, the Egyptian government has imposed increasingly stringent entry requirements on Sudanese nationals since the outbreak of war in April 2023. The Egyptian government began restricting Sudanese males between the ages of 16 and 50 from entering the country, though women, children, and men above the age cap were still permitted to cross.[2] In late May, Egypt stopped accepting emergency travel documents from Sudanese nationals, and on June 7, Egypt started requiring visas from all arrivals from Sudan, citing alleged fraud on the Sudanese side of the border.[3]

The requirement of visas, which is in contradiction of the Four Freedoms agreement, has exacerbated the already desperate humanitarian situation at Egypt’s crossing points — where individuals and families, including small children, have been forced to wait in long queues without shaded areas or hygienic facilities.[4] For those able to cross, only one international organization, the Egyptian Red Crescent, has been permitted to provide relief on the Egyptian side of the border. The Red Crescent receives financial support from the UNHCR, but the United Nations refugee agency itself was not allowed by Egyptian authorities to open an additional office near the crossing points.

Self-settlement in Cairo

Many of the Sudanese nationals who managed to cross before the new visa restrictions came into place have made their way to Cairo, Egypt’s largest city. As previous arrivals have done — including refugees from Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, Libya, and other countries over the past decade — the arrivals from Sudan are self-settling, relying on the initial resources they brought with them and the minimal assistance available from international organizations and community-based organizations (CBOs) located throughout Cairo’s sprawling metropolis.[5] CBOs provide a physical space where newcomers can learn about the basics of survival in Egypt, including how to register with the UN refugee agency, where to access medical care, and how to enroll their children in school.

The speed at which people have fled Sudan and the shock of having to contend with rebuilding a life in Egypt has left many of the new arrivals reeling from loss. At a recent information session hosted by a CBO in Cairo, a woman asked about scholarships for her son, who had been in his last year of medical school in Sudan when he fled. He had been told by an Egyptian university that he would have to begin his studies from scratch if he wanted to continue pursuing medicine. His mother was in tears over her son’s lost dreams and ambitions. The director of the organization told her that although he could not direct her toward any scholarships, he could connect her with another community organization that provided psychosocial services to refugees coping with grief.

Attendees at this information session also wanted to know how to travel onward from Egypt. The session administrators explained that Sudanese arrivals are not eligible for refugee resettlement; the UN refugee agency in Egypt has chosen to apply the 1969 Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention instead of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees to Sudanese nationals. While the 1969 convention uses a more expansive definition of “refugee” that can more easily fit fleeing Sudanese nationals under its purview, this means that Sudanese nationals in Egypt are only being given access to temporary protection with no prospect of resettlement to a third country.

Instead, those who have been lucky enough to cross to Egypt since April must focus on making a temporary life there, with little access to assistance. One of the most immediate issues facing Sudanese arrivals is housing: Landlords struggling with Egypt’s economic woes have taken advantage of foreigners by increasing rents in neighborhoods known to house refugees and asylum seekers.[6] Only some refugees are eligible for the minimal, short-term rental assistance offered by international organizations, and Egypt’s no-camp policy means that refugees are not entitled to housing upon arrival. As a result, many Sudanese refugees have enough money for initial security deposits but no concrete way to continue paying rent going forward.

Redirecting International Aid to Help Sudanese Refugees

In recent years, Egypt has touted the high number of foreigners living in the country — which the International Organization for Migration estimated at 9 million in 2022 — in order to extract financial support from Europe and international institutions. This highly contested number includes at least 4 million Sudanese nationals, marking them as foreigners, even though many were born in Egypt, have fought in the Egyptian military, and have made Egypt their home.

Since the outbreak of the war in Sudan, the security surrounding Sudanese nationals in Egypt has increased. The Egyptian government already had a reputation for deporting Sudanese nationals it deemed security threats and for cooperating with Sudanese intelligence forces, but the surveillance has worsened since April. Even long-term Sudanese residents are now worried about being arrested, detained, or deported. Recent arrivals can receive residency permits after they register with the UN refugee agency, but the permits are only valid for three months, and the renewal process can be arduous. If Egypt becomes further entangled in the Sudanese conflict, or if the hosting of Sudanese refugees becomes more contentious, the extension of temporary residency could also be revoked.

The narrative of Egypt as a generous migrant and refugee host state is often bolstered by international organizations and especially the European Union, which has increasingly looked to Egypt to ensure that migrants and refugees do not travel across the Mediterranean toward Europe. On June 18, 2023, Josep Borrell, the high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy and the vice president of the European Commission, met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and offered 20 million euros to help Egypt receive Sudanese refugees, stating, “I know this is not enough and you are going to pay much more, but at least, let us contribute a little bit in your support.”[7] Less publicized was an additional offer of 80 million euros to Egypt last fall for improving “border management, search and rescue and anti-smuggling operations” along the country’s north coast.[8]

New Sudanese arrivals need additional support beyond the scale that can be provided by CBOs alone, and international efforts to raise funding to support host countries like Egypt have fallen short.[9] The Egyptian government is in an alarmingly precarious economic position, unwilling to make the difficult fiscal decisions necessary to right its currency and meet its international loan obligations. Convincing Egypt to take on further responsibility for assisting Sudanese refugees is unlikely at a time when the government is unable to meet its own obligations toward Egyptian citizens.

But Europe can reorient its funding priorities. Rather than allotting the bulk of its foreign assistance to the management and securitization of Egypt’s northern border — thereby further entrapping Sudanese refugees and other foreign nationals, as well as vulnerable Egyptians, in Egypt and subsequently turning a blind eye to how they are treated by authorities — the bulk of the aid can be used to support the work of international organizations and grassroots efforts to assist Sudanese refugees. It can also be used as leverage to convince Egyptian authorities to refrain from arresting or deporting Sudanese nationals already in Egypt, and to uphold Egypt’s obligations under the Four Freedoms agreement toward Sudanese nationals seeking entry and protection at Egypt’s southern border.

Egypt does not need assistance in securing its northern coastline; the government has demonstrated its capacity since 2016 to stop boats traveling irregularly to Egypt without European funding. Rather, in order to mitigate the humanitarian crisis, migration-focused aid should be redirected to respond to the needs of Sudanese refugees in Egypt and at the country’s southern border.