In simpler instances for Egypt’s refugees, Azza Mostafa, a pro-government TV anchor, had nothing however beneficiant phrases for the numerous 1000’s of Syrians who had constructed new lives in Egypt after their own country imploded into civil warfare in 2011.
“I’d wish to say to our Syrian households and our brothers in Egypt,” she stated in a 2019 broadcast, “you’ve really introduced gentle to Egypt.”
However there she was on her present in June, fulminating towards Egypt’s rising variety of outsiders — an echo of the nation’s leaders, whose coverage towards refugees and migrants has hardened as they wrestle with an economic crisis made worse by wars in neighboring Gaza, Sudan and Libya.
“This has grow to be insufferable,” Ms. Mostafa said, accusing migrants of driving up rents and selling feminine genital mutilation. “There are lots of acts of overstepping bounds. Is that acceptable? After we opened our nation for them?”
Egypt lengthy made it simple for foreigners of all types to stay and work within the nation, largely with out interference, whether or not they have been refugees, migrant employees or Westerners escaping coronavirus lockdowns.
The previous 13 years have introduced a close to unbroken stream of newcomers fleeing battle to the nation that’s identified amongst Arabs because the “mom of the world.” That features not simply Syrians but additionally Sudanese, Yemenis, Eritreans and, most just lately, Palestinians from Gaza.
Egypt’s lax immigration guidelines meant many by no means formally registered as refugees or acquired official permission to remain long-term, but managed to sew themselves nearly seamlessly into the nation, supporting themselves and generally beginning companies.
Since Sudan’s civil war drove a surge of refugees to Egypt beginning in 2023, nevertheless, the impoverished authorities in Cairo has complained louder and louder concerning the burden of foreigners. It quickly tightened its insurance policies — hoping, analysts and diplomats say, to win extra help from worldwide backers keen to stop migration to their very own international locations.
Egypt says it spends $10 billion annually on its 9 million refugees, based on officers and government-controlled media (although specialists say each numbers are vastly exaggerated), all whereas Egyptians endure soaring prices and subsidy cuts.
Years of presidency overspending, reliance on imports and insurance policies that uncared for private-sector progress left the nation’s funds in precarious form earlier than the wars in Ukraine and Gaza despatched them crashing. Egypt misplaced $7 billion in essential income from the Suez Canal in 2024 because the battle in Gaza has squeezed shipping in the Red Sea, based on authorities officers.
With Egypt deep in debt and hard-pressed to pay for imports resembling wheat and vitality, the foreign money has crashed, whereas some items have grow to be troublesome to search out.
Ahmed Abu Al-Yazid, the top of a government-owned sugar agency, the Delta Sugar Firm, blamed refugees for a sugar scarcity that specialists hyperlink to the financial disaster. The president accused them of draining Egypt’s treasured water. On social media, pro-government accounts — a few of which seemed to be pretend — accused Sudanese refugees of driving up rents and selling feminine genital mutilation.
A crackdown quickly adopted the accusations, based on migrants, refugees and their advocates.
Sudanese refugees have been rounded up in police sweeps, detained and summarily deported. Syrians who’ve lived in Egypt for years have been instructed to pay 1000’s of {dollars} to remain. Many stay hesitant to return, regardless of the fall of the Assad regime in December, till the state of affairs stabilizes.
Overseas employees from Asia and from different elements of Africa now face extra hurdles to maintain their authorized standing, and in some instances, have been arrested to compel them to pay excessive charges, advocates say.
Final month, Egypt handed a regulation that will hand accountability for screening refugees and others to the federal government, as an alternative of to the United Nations refugee company.
Authorities officers stated the measure would guarantee a wide selection of refugee rights. Critics of the transfer, nevertheless, stated that it might grow to be far harder for refugees to achieve safety or entry to well being care and faculties. The regulation additionally empowers the federal government to revoke refugee standing on imprecise grounds resembling breaches of nationwide safety, political exercise or violations of Egyptian social customs.
Abu Saleh, 32, a Syrian who works in a small Cairo grocery, stated he had lived within the metropolis for 13 years “with out a single difficulty” till he found in July that he might now not enroll his son at school with out a residence allow.
Simply to resume his household’s vacationer visas, he stated, he was instructed that he must return to Syria and pay $2,000 per individual in charges — a course of he must repeat each six months.
“Egypt has been there for us all alongside,” stated Abu Saleh, who requested to be recognized by the title he makes use of round city to keep away from attainable repercussions. “I’d wish to attraction to the federal government of Egypt: Give us residence, even when it’s slightly dearer. We’re dealing with robust situations.”
Egypt has not defined its hardening perspective towards foreigners. However analysts and migrant advocates tie it to the financial disaster, which has generated widespread bitterness and undermined President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s rule.
The newcomers make handy scapegoats for Egyptians’ hardships, rights teams say. Immigration charges, charged in {dollars}, can provide a few of the overseas foreign money that Egypt badly wants. And foreigners are additionally useful pawns in Egypt’s quest for extra monetary help from its worldwide companions, rights teams say.
“They suppose, ‘How can these individuals be helpful for the federal government?’” stated Nour Khalil, govt director of the Refugees Platform in Egypt, which advocates migrants’ rights.
The U.N. refugee company counts about 818,000 registered refugees in Egypt, who’re entitled to free public well being care and training. There are doubtless many extra unregistered refugees, although analysts and help employees dispute the determine reaches 9 million.
The advantages that registered refugees obtain imply that Egypt “is treating them like Egyptians, although we’re not a wealthy nation,” the overseas minister, Badr Abdelatty, stated at a information convention final month. “There isn’t a nation on the planet assuming these tasks and challenges like right here in Egypt. We don’t have one single refugee camp — they’re totally built-in in society.”
Refugee advocates agree that Egypt wants extra assets. Not like different international locations within the area, together with Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, the place america, the United Nations and the European Union have poured billions into supporting refugees, Egypt has not acquired vital funds to assist home Syrian or different refugees.
That’s altering.
Because the warfare in Gaza has pounded Egypt’s funds, Western backers have rushed to Egypt’s aid, anxious to stop an financial collapse within the Arab world’s most populous nation, analysts and diplomats say. A crash in Egypt might additional destabilize the Center East and ship a deluge of migrants throughout the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, the place there’s heavy public pressure to restrict migration.
The European Union pledged a fast-tracked $8 billion aid package to Egypt in March, echoing deals the bloc has struck with Mauritania, Tunisia and Turkey that funded migration enforcement in these international locations.
Different backers, together with the Worldwide Financial Fund, have despatched billions extra to stabilize Egypt’s financial system.
Critics say the European pact with Egypt, just like the bloc’s different migration offers, is enabling rights abuses by rewarding Mr. el-Sisi’s authoritarianism and probably funding the present crackdown on migrants.
Teams together with Amnesty Worldwide and the Refugees Platform in Egypt have documented what they say is a pattern of mass arbitrary arrests and illegal deportations of Sudanese refugees — some detained as they have been smuggled throughout the border, others rounded up throughout random sweeps of predominantly Sudanese neighborhoods.
Some Syrians, too, have been expelled, Mr. Khalil of the refugees platform stated. His group has additionally documented greater than 50 arrests of overseas employees, a few of whom already had residency, who have been held till they paid $1,000 in charges and fines, he stated.
An environment of worry has introduced throngs of Sudanese to the doorstep of the U.N. refugee company in Cairo, searching for formal safety. However refugee standing can take months, if not years, to acquire: Appointments to start the method should not accessible till late 2025. And a few of the Sudanese who’ve been detained and deported, Mr. Khalil stated, held some type of U.N. identification, casting doubt on whether or not the group might assure safety.
Amongst these ready exterior one morning was Mohammed Abdelwahab, 36. By the point he and his household tried to cross the border from Sudan this spring, Egypt had tightly restricted what had been free-flowing motion between the 2 international locations, in order that they resorted to smugglers as an alternative.
With out authorized papers, Mr. Abdelwahab and his 14-year-old son, Mohanad, collected plastic bottles on Cairo’s streets for a residing. Mr. Abdelwahab was on the lookout for higher work in the future in June when Mohanad disappeared.
Twenty days later, Mohanad resurfaced with a WhatsApp message: He had been rounded up with a gaggle of different Sudanese and deported.
Mr. Abdelwahab had been on the lookout for Mohanad in one other metropolis. When he returned to Cairo, his spouse and three different kids had been evicted for nonpayment.
“It’s indescribable,” he stated. “Now they’re all tenting out right here,” he added, referring to his household and indicating the sidewalk in entrance of the refugee company, the place teams of different Sudanese waited listlessly within the solar.
Emad Mekay and Rania Khaled contributed reporting.
