As Egypt attempts to offer services to returnees and refugees fleeing the war in Sudan, Aswan Governor Ashraf Attiya announced on 13 May that a second Nile ferry has started operation, transporting people and cargo arriving from Sudan into Egypt at Qastal land crossing at the Egypt – Sudan border.
The ferry, which belongs to the city of Abu Simbel, has been outfitted to carry 100 passengers, 10 coaches or trucks, and 50 tons of cargo. It joins a fleet of Egyptian civilian and military ferries, buses and vehicles working round the clock to move people and cargo from Qastal into Egypt.
In Aswan
Governor Attiya said that an operations room has been set up by Aswan Governorate, supervised by the Governor, to deal with the crisis. The governorate, he said, coordinates with the land crossings at Qastal and Arqeen, also the international land terminus at Karkar, for updated figures of the numbers crossing the borders, to be ready to receive them with meals and dry foods, the medical and health care needed, also mental health support. The health services are offered through Health Ministry clinics and convoys.
The Governor explained that logistics services work with the Ministry of Transport and traffic authorities to provide trains, coaches, and microbuses to move the arrivals further inland to Cairo, Alexandria, or whichever destination they would require. He said that officials at the governorate are working round the clock with a host of NGOs, civil society institutions, and volunteers to ensure all services to returnees and refugees are adequately provided: food and water, healthcare, child care and support, accommodations and transport, hygiene services and garbage disposal, and others.
A delegation representing eight international organisations visited the Qastal crossing. It included representatives from UNICEF, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Health Organisation, and the World Food Programme. The delegation was briefed on the services provided by Egypt to the those arriving from Sudan.
The crossing witnessed the arrival of large numbers of buses carrying nationals from various countries, among them China, the Philippines and India.
Safaga Red Sea port
A few days earlier, on 10 May, Health Ministry Spokesperson Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar said health services had been that day provided to 581 people arriving from Port Sudan to Egypt’s Red Sea port of Safaga. He said that 466 were examined in the port’s quarantine clinics, 114 children were administered polio vaccines [Egypt is a polio-free country according to WHO], and one patient was moved to hospital.
The 466 included 184 Egyptians, 272 Sudanese, five Britons, an American and a Kenyan who had been stranded in Sudan. They were welcomed on their arrival at the port of Safaga on 9 May by Red Sea Governor Amr Hanafi and Head of the Red Sea Ports Authority Mohamed Abdel Rahim.
Students
Egypt’s national and private universities will be accepting Egyptian students who had been studying at Sudanese universities and managed to return to Egypt, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Mohamed Ayman Ashour has announced. They will be required, however, to meet the entry requirements, he said.
The decision, taken jointly by Egypt’s Cabinet and Supreme Council for Private and National Universities, allows the enrolment of students arriving from conflict zones such as Sudan, Russia, and Ukraine.
A number of universities have announced lenient admissions criteria for repatriated students. The national Nile University exempted returning students from specific conditions they might not have been able to fulfill, in order to give them better chances at acceptance, whereas Al Salam University announced special scholarships for them.
Egyptian students requesting transfer to private and national universities in Egypt were required to complete an online form. By 4 May, some 4,000 students had registered. The figure was revealed by the Ministry of Emigration and Expatriate Affairs.
The Ministry noted that most Egyptian students have been evacuated and returned to Egypt, including two injured students: Engineering student Mona Awad and Dentistry student Mahmoud Atef who were wounded by shrapnel shells.
A diabetic medical student, Saber Nasr El-Din, died on 23 April 2023 because he could not get an insulin shot at a pharmacy or hospital. He was buried in Sudan after efforts to secure safe passage to Egypt failed.
Repatriation efforts
Egypt is making great efforts to evacuate Egyptians still stranded in Sudan, Red Sea Governor Amr Hanafi said, noting that co-ordination with Sudanese authorities was instrumental in providing safe passage for Egyptians to their homeland, including an airlift by military aircraft. Official figures put the number of Egyptians residing, working or studying in Sudan at 10,000 when the war broke out on 15 April 2023. By end of April, the Egyptian government said it had repatriated 6,399.
Watani International
15 May 2023
Discussion about this post