Egypt Requires Visas for Sudanese Entry Amidst ‘Illegal Activities’: Foreign Ministry

Egypt’s foreign ministry said on Saturday that Cairo had instituted a new policy requiring all Sudanese to obtain visas before entering the country after discovering “illegal activities” including issuing fake visas.

The Reuters news agency quoted a spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Ahmed Abu Zeid, as saying that more than 200,000 Sudanese have entered Egypt since the outbreak of fighting in Sudan last April.

Reuters reported that the decision comes in contrast to a previous agreement between the two countries that guaranteed free entry for children, women and elderly men without obtaining a visa.

Last month, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, confirmed after concluding a visit to Egypt that “more than 345,000 people have recently had to flee Sudan, and Egypt hosts about half of them.”

Cairo refuses to set up camps for refugees, as the authorities prefer to grant them the right to work and move like Egyptians, according to AFP.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi stressed more than once that the arrivals, due to the situation in their country, “are guests, not refugees.”

Before the war in Sudan, more than four million Sudanese lived in Egypt, according to United Nations data, as the two neighboring Arab countries have many cultural and historical ties.