World

Egypt Sees Its Refugees as a Problem and an Opportunity

Published

11 months ago

January 9, 2025

Egypt Sees Its Refugees as a Problem and an Opportunity

In easier times for Egypt’s refugees, Azza Mostafa, a pro-government TV anchor, had nothing but generous words for the many thousands of Syrians who had built new lives in Egypt after their own country imploded into civil war in 2011.

“I’d like to say to our Syrian families and our brothers in Egypt,” she said in a 2019 broadcast, “you’ve truly brought light to Egypt.”

But there she was on her show in June, fulminating against Egypt’s growing number of outsiders — an echo of the country’s leaders, whose policy toward refugees and migrants has hardened as they wrestle with an economic crisis made worse by wars in neighboring Gaza, Sudan and Libya.

“This has become unbearable,” Ms. Mostafa said, accusing migrants of driving up rents and promoting female genital mutilation. “There are many acts of overstepping bounds. Is that acceptable? After we opened our country for them?”

Egypt long made it easy for foreigners of all kinds to live and work in the country, largely without interference, whether they were refugees, migrant workers or Westerners escaping coronavirus lockdowns.

The past 13 years have brought a near unbroken stream of newcomers fleeing conflict to the country that is known among Arabs as the “mother of the world.” That includes not just Syrians but also Sudanese, Yemenis, Eritreans and, most recently, Palestinians from Gaza.

Egypt’s lax immigration rules meant many never formally registered as refugees or received official permission to stay long-term, yet managed to stitch themselves almost seamlessly into the country, supporting themselves and sometimes starting businesses.

Since Sudan’s civil war drove a surge of refugees to Egypt starting in 2023, however, the impoverished government in Cairo has complained louder and louder about the burden of foreigners. It rapidly tightened its policies — hoping, analysts and diplomats say, to win more support from international backers eager to prevent migration to their own countries.

Egypt says it spends $10 billion each year on its nine million refugees, according to officials and government-controlled media (though experts say both numbers are greatly exaggerated), all while Egyptians endure soaring prices and subsidy cuts.

Years of government overspending, reliance on imports and policies that neglected private-sector growth left the country’s finances in precarious shape before the wars in Ukraine and Gaza sent them crashing. Egypt lost $7 billion in crucial revenue from the Suez Canal in 2024 as the conflict in Gaza has squeezed shipping in the Red Sea, according to government officials.

With Egypt deep in debt and hard-pressed to pay for imports such as wheat and energy, the currency has crashed, while some goods have become difficult to find.

Ahmed Abu Al-Yazid, the head of a government-owned sugar firm, the Delta Sugar Company, blamed refugees for a sugar shortage that experts link to the economic crisis. The president accused them of draining Egypt’s precious water. On social media, pro-government accounts — some of which appeared to be fake — accused Sudanese refugees of driving up rents and promoting female genital mutilation.

A crackdown soon followed the accusations, according to migrants, refugees and their advocates.

Sudanese refugees have been rounded up in police sweeps, detained and summarily deported. Syrians who have lived in Egypt for years have been told to pay thousands of dollars to stay. Many remain hesitant to return, despite the fall of the Assad regime in December, until the situation stabilizes.

Foreign workers from Asia and from other parts of Africa now face extra hurdles to keep their legal status, and in some cases, have been arrested to compel them to pay high fees, advocates say.

Last month, Egypt passed a law that would hand responsibility for screening refugees and others to the government, instead of to the United Nations refugee agency.

Government officials said the measure would ensure a wide array of refugee rights. Critics of the move, however, said that it would become far harder for refugees to gain protection or access to health care and schools. The law also empowers the government to revoke refugee status on vague grounds such as breaches of national security, political activity or violations of Egyptian social customs.

Abu Saleh, 32, a Syrian who works in a small Cairo grocery, said he had lived in the city for 13 years “without a single issue” until he discovered in July that he could no longer enroll his son in school without a residence permit.

Just to renew his family’s tourist visas, he said, he was told that he would have to return to Syria and pay $2,000 per person in fees — a process he would have to repeat every six months.

“Egypt has been there for us all along,” said Abu Saleh, who asked to be identified by the name he uses around town to avoid possible repercussions. “I’d like to appeal to the government of Egypt: Give us residence, even if it’s a little more expensive. We’re facing tough conditions.”

Egypt has not explained its hardening attitude toward foreigners. But analysts and migrant advocates tie it to the economic crisis, which has generated widespread bitterness and undermined President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s rule.

The newcomers make convenient scapegoats for Egyptians’ hardships, rights groups say. Immigration fees, charged in dollars, can supply some of the foreign currency that Egypt badly needs. And foreigners are also valuable pawns in Egypt’s quest for more financial support from its international partners, rights groups say.

“They think, ‘How can these people be useful for the government?’” said Nour Khalil, executive director of the Refugees Platform in Egypt, which advocates for migrants’ rights.

The U.N. refugee agency counts about 818,000 registered refugees in Egypt, who are entitled to free public health care and education. There are likely many more unregistered refugees, though analysts and aid workers dispute the figure reaches nine million.

The benefits that registered refugees receive mean that Egypt “is treating them like Egyptians, despite the fact that we are not a rich country,” the foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, said at a news conference last month. “There is no country in the world assuming these responsibilities and challenges like here in Egypt. We don’t have one single refugee camp — they are fully integrated in society.”

Refugee advocates agree that Egypt needs more resources. Unlike other countries in the region, including Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, where the United States, the United Nations and the European Union have poured billions into supporting refugees, Egypt has not received significant funds to help house Syrian or other refugees.

That is changing.

As the war in Gaza has pounded Egypt’s finances, Western backers have rushed to Egypt’s aid, anxious to prevent an economic collapse in the Arab world’s most populous country, analysts and diplomats say. A crash in Egypt could further destabilize the Middle East and send a deluge of migrants across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, where there is 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 those countries.

Other backers, including the International Monetary Fund, have sent billions more to stabilize Egypt’s economy.

Critics say the European pact with Egypt, like the bloc’s other migration deals, is enabling rights abuses by rewarding Mr. el-Sisi’s authoritarianism and potentially funding the current crackdown on migrants.

Groups including Amnesty International and the Refugees Platform in Egypt have documented what they say is a pattern of mass arbitrary arrests and unlawful deportations of Sudanese refugees — some detained as they were smuggled across the border, others rounded up during random sweeps of predominantly Sudanese neighborhoods.

Some Syrians, too, have been expelled, Mr. Khalil of the refugees platform said. His group has also documented more than 50 arrests of foreign workers, some of whom already had residency, who were held until they paid $1,000 in fees and fines, he said.

An atmosphere of fear has brought throngs of Sudanese to the doorstep of the U.N. refugee agency in Cairo, seeking formal protection. But refugee status can take months, if not years, to obtain: Appointments to begin the process are not available until late 2025. And some of the Sudanese who have been detained and deported, Mr. Khalil said, held some form of U.N. identification, casting doubt on whether the organization could guarantee security.

Among those waiting outside one morning was Mohammed Abdelwahab, 36. By the time he and his family tried to cross the border from Sudan this spring, Egypt had tightly restricted what had been free-flowing movement between the two countries, so they resorted to smugglers instead.

Without legal papers, Mr. Abdelwahab and his 14-year-old son, Mohanad, collected plastic bottles on Cairo’s streets for a living. Mr. Abdelwahab was looking for better work one day in June when Mohanad disappeared.

Twenty days later, Mohanad resurfaced with a WhatsApp message: He had been rounded up with a group of other Sudanese and deported.

Mr. Abdelwahab had been looking for Mohanad in another city. When he returned to Cairo, his wife and three other children had been evicted for nonpayment.

“It’s indescribable,” he said. “Now they’re all camping out here,” he added, referring to his family and indicating the sidewalk in front of the refugee agency, where groups of other Sudanese waited listlessly in the sun.

Emad Mekay and Rania Khaled contributed reporting.

Related Topics:Abdel Fattah el-Cairo (Egypt)egypt europe European Union Featured Sisi Sudan Syria United Nations High Commission for Refugees

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World

Ukraine drops NATO goal as Trump envoy sees progress in peace talks

Published

6 hours ago

December 15, 2025

Press Room

Ukraine drops NATO goal as Trump envoy sees progress in peace talks

BERLIN/KYIV, Dec 14 (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy offered to drop Ukraine’s aspirations to join the NATO military alliance as he held five hours of talks with U.S. envoys in Berlin on Sunday to end the war with Russia, with negotiations set to continue on Monday.

Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said “a lot of progress was made” as he and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met Zelenskiy in the latest push to end Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War Two, though full details were not divulged.

Zelenskiy’s adviser Dmytro Lytvyn said the president would comment on the talks on Monday once they were completed. Officials, Lytvyn said, were considering the draft documents.

“They went on for more than five hours and ended for today with an agreement to resume tomorrow morning,” Lytvyn told reporters in a WhatsApp chat.

Ahead of the talks, Zelenskiy offered to drop Ukraine’s goal to join NATO in exchange for Western security guarantees.

The move marks a major shift for Ukraine, which has fought to join NATO as a safeguard against Russian attacks and has such an aspiration included in its constitution. It also meets one of Russia’s war aims, although Kyiv has so far held firm against ceding territory to Moscow.

“Representatives held in-depth discussions regarding the 20-point plan for peace, economic agendas, and more. A lot of progress was made, and they will meet again tomorrow morning,” Witkoff said in a post on X.

The talks were hosted by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who a source said had made brief remarks before leaving the two sides to negotiate. Other European leaders are also due in Germany for talks on Monday.

“From the very beginning, Ukraine’s desire was to join NATO, these are real security guarantees. Some partners from the U.S. and Europe did not support this direction,” Zelenskiy said in answer to questions from reporters in a WhatsApp chat.

“Thus, today, bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the U.S., Article 5-like guarantees for us from the U.S., and security guarantees from European colleagues, as well as other countries — Canada, Japan — are an opportunity to prevent another Russian invasion,” Zelenskiy said.

“And it is already a compromise on our part,” he said, adding the security guarantees should be legally binding.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly demanded Ukraine officially renounce its NATO ambitions and withdraw troops from the about 10% of Donbas which Kyiv still controls. Moscow has also said Ukraine must be a neutral country and no NATO troops can be stationed in Ukraine.

Russian sources said earlier this year that Putin wants a “written” pledge by major Western powers not to enlarge the U.S.-led NATO alliance eastwards – shorthand for formally ruling out membership to Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and other former Soviet republics.

Sending Witkoff, who has led negotiations with Ukraine and Russia on a U.S. peace proposal, appeared to be a signal that Washington saw a chance of progress nearly four years after Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Under pressure from Trump to sign a peace deal that initially backed Moscow’s demands, Zelenskiy accused Russia of dragging out the war through deadly bombings of cities and Ukraine’s power and water supplies.

A ceasefire along the current front lines would be a fair option, he added.

‘CRITICAL MOMENT’

Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said it was a “good sign” Trump had sent his envoys while fielding questions in an interview with the ZDF broadcaster on the suitability of Witkoff and Kushner, two businessmen, as negotiators.

“It’s certainly anything but an ideal setup for such negotiations. That much is clear. But as they say, you can only dance with the people on the dance floor,” Pistorius said.

On the issue of Ukraine’s offer to give up its NATO aspirations in exchange for security guarantees, Pistorius said Ukraine had bitter prior experience of relying on security assurances. Kyiv had in 1994 agreed to give up its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal in exchange for territorial guarantees from the U.S., Russia and Britain.

“Therefore, it remains to be seen to what extent this statement Zelenskiy has now made will actually hold true, and what preconditions must be met,” Pistorius said.

“This concerns territorial issues, commitments from Russia and others,” he said, adding mere security guarantees, especially without significant U.S. involvement, “wouldn’t be worth much.”

Britain, France and Germany have been working to refine the U.S. proposals, which in a draft disclosed last month called for Kyiv to cede more territory, abandon its NATO ambitions and accept limits on its armed forces.

European allies have described this as a “critical moment” that could shape Ukraine’s future, and sought to shore up Kyiv’s finances by leveraging frozen Russian central bank assets to fund Kyiv’s military and civilian budget.

Reporting by Friederike Heine, Matthias Williams, Olena Harmash, Andreas Rinke, Ron Popeski, David Ljunggren; writing by Matthias Williams; editing by Alexander Smith and Chris Reese

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World

US veteran rescues ‘most wanted woman in Western Hemisphere’ from Venezuela in secret operation

Published

7 hours ago

December 15, 2025

Press Room

US veteran rescues ‘most wanted woman in Western Hemisphere’ from Venezuela in secret operation

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The rescue operation to extract Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado and transport her to Norway in time to accept her Nobel Peace Prize involved a complex series of complications and various components in land, sea and air.

The mission, dubbed Operation Golden Dynamite, was spearheaded by Bryan Stern, a U.S. special forces veteran and founder of the Tampa-based Grey Bull Rescue Foundation, which specializes in high-risk rescue missions and evacuations, notably from conflict and disaster zones.

Getting her out of Venezuela, where she is considered a fugitive by President Nicolás Maduro, involved disguises, deception, navigating choppy seas and arranging flight options.

“She’s perceived by the Maduro regime the way we perceived Osama bin Laden, like that,” Stern told Fox News. “That level of manhunt if you will.”

US COVERT TEAM LEADER DESCRIBES ‘DANGEROUS’ MISSION TO RESCUE VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION LEADER

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gestures at a protest ahead of the Friday inauguration of President Nicolás Maduro for his third term, in Caracas, Venezuela, January 9, 2025. (Maxwell Briceno/Reuters)

Machado has been hiding out in Venezuela since Maduro won a highly disputed election last year and had not been seen in public in months.

Stern emphasized that the U.S. government was not involved in the operation.

His team had been building up a presence in the Caribbean, Venezuela and the neighboring island of Aruba in preparation for operations in the South American region.

The biggest challenge, Stern said, was getting Machado out of the country despite her being a well-known figure there. In order to move her from her house to a “beach landing site,” his team reportedly did “all kinds of things designed to create a little bit of confusion.”

“Anything that we could have possibly think of that we thought could hide her face … was employed.” Stern said. “Anything we could think of, her digital signature, her physical signature. On top of that, we did some deception operations on the ground. We made some noise in some places designed to get people to think something was happening that wasn’t.”

VENEZUELAN DISSIDENT MACHADO CREDITS TRUMP FOR ADVANCING FREEDOM MOVEMENT, DEDICATES NOBEL TO HIM

Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro brandishes a sword said to have belonged to independence hero Simon Bolivar during a civic-military event at the military academy in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)

The maritime operation started off rough, Stern recounted. Of the two boats deployed for the mission, the vessel that physically extracted Machado reportedly lost its GPS in the turbulent seas and suffered a mechanical hiccup that delayed the operation. The team was forced to continue into the “dead of night” in “pitch-black darkness,” navigating seas so violent that one of Stern’s seasoned operators reportedly vomited for nine hours straight.

Reaching the rendezvous point added another layer of difficulty. Stern’s boat and Machado’s vessel had to find each other in pitch-black seas while maintaining radio silence to avoid detection, ultimately locating one another by flashlight.

Stern said he had to remain cautious, fearing that the approaching boat could have been a trap set by Venezuelan forces. To confirm it was safe to proceed, his larger vessel circled Machado’s boat and shined lights on the crew.

After Stern physically pulled Machado onto his boat, he then alerted the rest of the team that Machado was secured: “Jackpot, jackpot, jackpot.”

“Now we are on the run with Maria Corina Machado, the most wanted woman in the Western Hemisphere, on my boat,” he said.

“I have the most wanted person in the Western hemisphere that I’m trying to move around,” Stern said. “Personally, she’s a hero of mine. She’s a hero of mine. I’ve been tracking her for years.”

VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION LEADER SAYS COUNTRY AT ‘THRESHOLD OF FREEDOM’ AS NEW MANIFESTO ENVISIONS REGIME CHANGE

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado waves at the Grand Hotel in Oslo, Norway, early Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (Lise Åserud/NTB Scanpix via AP)

Once in international waters, the new concern was avoiding any appearance that they had kidnapped a Venezuelan, which would have given the government any justification to attack.

“They lie. They could have killed us for any reason,” Stern said. “We’re in the middle of the d— ocean and there’s no one around to see the truth … we are scared, we are nervous, we’re on the run and we floor it getting to the rendezvous.”

Stern ordered his boat captain to drive full throttle and not stop for anything, fearing pursuit by the Venezuelan regime.

“My boat guy, I told him I don’t care, I don’t care who comes,” Stern said. “You don’t stop. You do not stop. I don’t care, I don’t care who. You do not stop at all. Let them chase us if they have to. We have got to get to land.”

At some point during the escape, two F-18 fighter jets reportedly flew overhead. Stern described the moment as a potential complication, since they could not determine whether the jets were hostile or friendly, though he noted it was likely not part of a Navy coordination.

“There’s an aircraft carrier in the Caribbean throwing airplanes off every twenty minutes. I don’t know,” Stern said. “I can tell you that nobody in the Navy said, ‘Don’t worry, brother, we sent two F-18s to cover you.’”

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The maritime team successfully delivered Machado to safety. Stern said his team had also prepared for a possible air extraction, but that plan was abandoned after a last-minute change on Machado’s side. Instead, the final flight to Norway was arranged by her personal network using a friend’s private jet, culminating in her safe arrival.

While Grey Bull Rescue has conducted operations in high-threat environments such as Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Haiti, Stern said the extraction of Machado was uniquely challenging, describing it as “overwhelmingly” the most complicated mission in the organization’s 800-mission history.

World

South Korea indicts ex-leader Yoon over power plot provoking North

Published

9 hours ago

December 15, 2025

Press Room

South Korea indicts ex-leader Yoon over power plot provoking North

Jailed former president accused of a plot to provoke military aggression from North to help consolidate his rule.

Published On 15 Dec 2025

Prosecutors have indicted former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for insurrection, accusing him of seeking to provoke military aggression from North Korea to help consolidate his power.

Special prosecutor Cho Eun-seok told a briefing on Monday that his team had indicted Yoon, five former cabinet members, and 18 others on insurrection charges, following a six-month probe into his declaration of martial law last year.

Martial law plotted for more than a year

Cho, one of three independent counsels appointed by South Korea’s current president, Lee Jae Myung, to investigate the martial law declaration, said Yoon and his supporters in the military had plotted since at least October 2023 to introduce the measure.

The plan involved installing collaborators in key military posts and removing a defence minister who opposed the scheme, Cho said.

The group even held dinner parties to build support for the plan among military leaders, he added.

Cho said Yoon, his Defence Minister Kim Yong Hyun, and Yeo In-hyung, commander of the military’s counterintelligence agency at the time, had directed military activities against North Korea since October 2024, seeking to provoke an aggressive response that would justify the declaration of martial law.

Yoon was indicted last month for ordering drone flights carrying propaganda leaflets into the North to inflame tensions – prompting his successor, Lee, to say earlier this month that he was weighing an apology to Pyongyang.

‘Antistate forces’

Cho said the provocations did not draw the expected reaction from North Korea, most likely because Pyongyang was tied up in supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine.

But Yoon pressed ahead regardless, he said, branding his political opponents – including the liberal-controlled legislature and the then-leader of his own conservative People Power Party – as “anti-state forces” in a bid to justify his actions.

Under South Korean law, insurrection is punishable by life in prison or the death penalty.

Yoon, who has been in jail since July following a stint in custody earlier in the year, insists that his martial law declaration was intended to draw public support for his fight against the opposition Democratic Party, which was abusing its control of parliament to cripple the work of the government.

“Yoon declared emergency martial law to monopolise and maintain power by taking control of the legislative and judiciary branches and eliminating his political opponents,” Cho said.