Egypt receives over 160,000 asylum seekers from Sudan: UN

February 22, 2024 (CAIRO) – The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said it recently registered 7,300 new asylum-seekers from Sudan in to Egypt, bringing the number of asylum seekers to 168,250 since the start of Sudan’s crisis in April 2023.

Additionally, the agency said in its latest update, 17,950 individuals received registration appointments last week, making the total 367,000 since April last year.

According to the agency, an agreement was signed with the Egyptian Ministry of Youth and Sports to promote social cohesion, ensure refugees’ effective access to all youth centres across the country and enhance their digital literacy.

“The community centres will also intertwine the value of sports, with a plan to introduce a training programme targeting Egyptian and refugee youth – including Sudanese, entailing leadership and sportsmanship activities aimed at promoting social cohesion between refugees and the hosting population,” it stated.

The UN refugee agency further revealed that it agreed with the Egyptian Ministry of Education to build an additional 28 classrooms in areas with a high density of refugee school-age children, particularly Sudanese newly arrived children.

Due to the escalating violence in Sudan in recent months and the limited prospects for a near-term ceasefire, the civilian population continues to be forced to flee a country on the brink of famine, according to the UN agency.

Since the conflict in Sudan erupted in April last year, however, the number of Sudanese seeking protection in Egypt has dramatically increased in nine months to 450,000 at the end of January, official figures from the world body indicate.

Although the influx appeared to slow down between July and October 2023 following restrictive measures on the entry of Sudanese – with 80,000 new arrivals in those four months – the upward trend reportedly intensified from November onwards, with 120,000 arrivals between late November 2023 and January 2024.

A challenging situation, combined with the reduction in funding to humanitarian organisations, has led to increased hardship for those forced to flee war-hit Sudan.

Additionally, however, the UN agency estimates that several tens of thousands of Sudanese forced to flee, mostly women and children, are currently in southern Egypt with very limited access to basic services and with high protection risks.

Meanwhile some 25 million people, more than half of Sudan’s population, need humanitarian assistance, while an estimated 3.8 million children under the age of five are suffering from malnutrition, according to the UN.

(ST)