The Egyptian officers have highlighted rising refugee numbers in Egypt. In 2016, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi said on the G20 summit that Egypt hosts over 5 million refugees and migrants. Then in 2020, Al-Sisi put the variety of Syrian refugees and migrants in Egypt at 500,000. The figures declared contradict the UNHCR (UN Refugee Company), which registers nearly 265,000 asylum-seekers and refugees in Egypt. As well as, the Egyptian authorities itself estimated the variety of Syrian refugees in Egypt in 2013 at 250,000-300,00 and there’s no obvious purpose to suppose that they doubled since.
It’s understood that the UNHCR doesn’t register all refugees. Nonetheless, the Egyptian officers have a transparent tendency to double the correct figures, because the regime used to make use of immigration as a card in its international insurance policies. In 2016, Egypt’s Assistant International Minister, Hesham Badr, blamed the EU-Turkish deal on immigrants and refugees for a spike in migrants and refugees in Egypt. “You see what has occurred on account of the cope with Turkey,” he instructed MEPs within the European Parliament’s International Affairs Committee, “The closing of the Balkan route and … the stress has elevated on Egypt.”
READ: EU spending millions on surveillance technology to turn refugees back
Badr requested EU help to accommodate the spike, just like the help given to Turkey.
Monetary support was not the one manner the Egyptian authorities sought to make use of the refugees. Final July, the Minister of Water Sources and Irrigation, Mohamed Abdel-Ati, warned Europe of accelerating unlawful migration if the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam was accomplished and operated with out a cope with Egypt.
Ethiopia controls the gates of Nile and lifetime of Egyptians, Egypt controls Gaza gates and lifetime of Gazans – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]
“Egypt is among the driest nations on the earth,” he stated, including that this lack of water would result in an explosion of unlawful migration to Europe.
Thus, Al-Sisi and his administration try to make use of the refugees and migration difficulty as playing cards of their dialogue with Europe. Throughout a go to to Cairo in 2018, the top of the European Border and Coast Guard Company (FRONTEX), Fabrice Leggeri, praised Egypt’s function as one of many main companions of the EU within the area, particularly concerning hindering unlawful immigration. Leggeri hailed the efforts of the Egyptian navy’s border guards to cease unlawful immigration.
Accordingly, Al-Sisi makes an attempt to purchase European silence on his human rights crimes along with his function as a watchman towards unlawful migration. In the course of the V4 summit in Budapest final October, Al-Sisi performed the refugee card responding to human rights critiques towards his regime and elevating his financial requests. “Are European nations prepared to contribute to bettering these nations political, financial, and probably cultural situations to reach at a unique strategy to human rights, which is at all times a controversial difficulty between our European buddies and us?” he requested.
Egypt’s cruelty to refugees
Al-Sisi has been eager to indicate explicit curiosity in accommodating refugees and respecting them. For instance, in December 2019, after a video on social media confirmed a Sudanese student bullied by Egyptian youngsters, Al-Sisi hosted John throughout the Worldwide Youth Discussion board and gave him a seat beside him within the first row. Such scenes cowl the true hardships confronted by the refugees in Egypt.
The financial reform programme adopted by the Egyptian authorities doubled refugees’ monetary wants. In 2019, Reuters quoted Laurent De Boeck, the top of the Worldwide Organisation of Migration in Egypt, who stated “We consider it is a consequence of financial reforms and the minimize of gasoline subsidies, which has led to a rise in primary items prices.”
READ: Eritrea refugees faced forced deportation from Egypt
Apart from the financial hardships, refugees in Egypt face rising right-wing xenophobia among the many regime’s supporters, who contemplate the refugees’ rivals to jobs and enterprise and a burden on their nations’ scarce sources. Furthermore, after the 2013 military coup, the regime’s propaganda depicted the Syrian refugees as supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and accused them of serving to terrorism in Syria. The identical propaganda was used throughout Mubarak’s mandate towards the African refugees, who held a sit-in in Cairo. Because of this, Egyptian police forcibly broke up the set-in, killing 25 and injuring dozens extra.
Most not too long ago, Egypt began to deport Eritrean refugees again to Asmara after the regime established intimate relations with Asmara’s authorities. In keeping with the Refugee Platform in Egypt, the Egyptian authorities started to arrest Eritrean asylum seekers on the Egyptian borders, and eight Eritrean asylum seekers have been deported regardless of the chance of torture and imprisonment they face upon their return.
The views expressed on this article belong to the writer and don’t essentially mirror the editorial coverage of Center East Monitor.
