Concerns have been raised over thousands of displaced people who have remained stranded in dire humanitarian conditions as they attempted to obtain an entry visa from the Egyptian consulate in Wadi Halfa, a Sudanese town near the Egyptian border.
Development Diaries reports that Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned the Egyptian government’s decision in June 2023 to require all Sudanese to obtain visas to enter Egypt.
This, it said, had reduced access to safety for women, children, and older people fleeing the ongoing conflict in Sudan.
Egypt recently reversed a visa exemption for children, women and elderly people, hence all citizens of neighbouring Sudan will now have to obtain visas before crossing the border.
HRW said the impact of the new rule, building on a prior rule that already required Sudanese males ages 16 to 49 to obtain a visa, and its implementation without ensuring the speedy processing of visas, violates international standards by creating unreasonable and life-threatening delays in processing asylum seekers.
As of late June, thousands of displaced people remained stranded in dire humanitarian conditions as they attempted to obtain an entry visa from the Egyptian consulate in Wadi Halfa.
Some have been compelled to wait up to a month as they struggled to secure food, accommodation, and health care.
Senior Middle East and North Africa researcher at HRW, Amr Magdi, said, ‘The need to combat visa forgery does not justify Egypt denying or delaying entry to people fleeing Sudan’s devastating conflict.
‘The Egyptian government should rescind its entry visa rule for Sudanese nationals during the current crisis, permit them swift entry, and facilitate access to asylum procedures or treat them as the refugees most if not all are’.
Over 2.7 million Sudanese have been displaced since the outset of hostilities in April, 2.2 million within Sudan and over 500,000 to neighbouring nations.
Approximately 250,000 Sudanese have arrived in Egypt, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
This is in addition to the two to five million Sudanese who were reportedly living in Egypt before the conflict.
Development Diaries calls on the government of Egypt to reconsider its visa restriction policy in order to reduce life-threatening incidences at the border, and to avoid human rights violation.
Source: HRW
Photo source: HRW
