On the night of Wednesday, February 12, Al-Nazir Al-Sadiq, an 18-year-old Sudanese refugee, died in custody at the Badr Police Station, northeast of Cairo. His death followed 25 days of detention under harsh conditions: held in an open courtyard outside the station buildings in bitter winter cold, without blankets or adequate cover amid prolonged suffering and what his family described as deliberate neglect.
Al-Nazir had been arrested while leaving his home in Badr City to buy bread from a nearby bakery. Despite presenting documents proving his legal status, he had fled Omdurman with his family two years earlier to escape the war, he was taken into custody.
“They took him from the building entrance,” said his grieving uncle Khalid Mohamed Suleiman. “It was an arbitrary arrest. He remained detained for 25 days. His mother visited him and found him in severe distress. He had developed a chest infection and there was no treatment in detention. He asked her to bring antibiotics and ointments for skin conditions caused by the poor environment. A day after she delivered the medicine, they called to inform her that he had died.”
During his detention, the family learned that conditions were extremely harsh. He was held in freezing weather without proper clothing, bedding or blankets, alongside criminal detainees.
“He was seeking nothing but safety from the horrors of war,” his uncle told Atar. “Instead of protection, he faced forced detention under conditions that raise serious concerns about dignity and human rights.”
The family reports that Al-Nazir had no prior medical conditions. By the time of this publication, they have not received an official death certificate specifying the cause of death. They were also shocked to learn that an autopsy had been conducted without their knowledge. His body remained at Zeinhom Morgue in central Cairo until last Friday afternoon.
Since the war erupted in Khartoum on April 15, 2023 and spread across multiple states, large numbers of Sudanese have fled to Egypt, through both formal and irregular routes. Many traversed smuggling corridors long mastered by traffickers.
According to data from the International Organization for Migration, as of October 2023, Sudanese nationals became the largest group among asylum applicants in Egypt. The agency estimates that approximately 1.5 million Sudanese refugees currently reside in Egypt. Of these, 1.03 million have been granted appointments with the UN refugee agency, and around 819,000 have received refugee cards. In January alone, 9,789 new Sudanese refugees arrived.
A Lethal Crackdown
For more than two years, Sudanese refugees in Egypt have endured mounting anxiety and insecurity. In recent months, particularly since December, this atmosphere has intensified dramatically as Egyptian authorities launched sweeping security raids and street roundups targeting cafés, markets, and public spaces.
Hundreds have been arrested, detained, and, in many cases, forcibly deported, with little regard for their economic vulnerability or the ongoing war in Sudan.
The campaigns have extended across densely populated Sudanese neighbourhoods in Greater Cairo, affecting women, children, the elderly, and school students. Even holders of valid asylum documentation have not been spared, despite protections enshrined in international refugee law and the Four Freedoms Agreement between Sudan and Egypt. Many detainees were denied the right to contact family members.
Approximately one week before Al-Nazir’s death, 67-year-old Mubarak Qamar Al-Din Abu Hawa reportedly died in custody at Al-Shoroug Police Station in Cairo. According to the Refugees Platform in Egypt, Mubarak succumbed to medical neglect after nine days of arbitrary detention without access to essential medication. A diabetic suffering from kidney dysfunction, he held a valid UNHCR registration card renewed in October 2025.
Arrested on January 26 while leaving his home in Al-Shoroug City to purchase bread and household supplies, his family immediately presented medical documentation confirming his chronic conditions. Their appeals went unanswered. He died from complications exacerbated by overcrowding and lack of care.
The Erosion of Protective Law
A refugee card is not a mere piece of paper. It is an instrument of international protection.
Nafisa Hajar, Sudanese Group for the Defense of Rights and Freedoms
Nafisa Hajar, the vice president of the Sudanese Group for the Defense of Rights and Freedoms, told Atar that in recent days they have documented hundreds of cases of forced deportation carried out by Egyptian authorities. These include individuals formally registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and holding valid refugee cards, an alarming breach of international humanitarian norms.
“What is happening, seizing refugees from streets or homes and returning them to a country engulfed in war, constitutes a flagrant violation of the principle of non-refoulement enshrined in the 1951 Geneva Convention,” Hajar stated, adding:
“A refugee card is not a mere piece of paper. It is an instrument of international protection. Detaining individuals in harsh conditions and deporting them en masse without the opportunity for legal appeal, or even to bid farewell to their families, amounts to delivering them back to mortal danger.”
Article 33 of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol prohibits expelling refugees to territories where their lives or freedoms would be threatened. The 1967 Protocol removed temporal and geographic limitations, broadening protections to all refugees regardless of displacement date. In 2004, Sudan and Egypt signed the Four Freedoms Agreement, granting citizens of both countries rights of movement, residence, work, and property ownership.
Egypt’s New Asylum Law: Regulation or Retrenchment?
In December 2024, Egypt enacted Law No. 164 of 2024, its first comprehensive asylum legislation since acceding to the 1951 Convention. While officially presented as a regulatory framework aligned with international standards, lawyers and rights organizations warn that it grants the state broad discretionary powers that may curtail protection and accelerate deportations, particularly of Sudanese refugees.
The law establishes a permanent committee for refugee affairs that effectively replaces UNHCR in registration, status determination, and deportation decisions. It invokes ambiguous grounds such as “national security” and “societal values,” without clear appeal mechanisms or transitional safeguards. The legislation was passed without consultation with UNHCR, civil society organizations, or refugee communities.
It also criminalizes irregular entry and restricts informal assistance networks, threatening the fragile support systems upon which many Sudanese refugees rely. Observers caution that unless amended, the framework risks deepening marginalization and narrowing avenues of protection.
Even Children and Students
Enforcement has intensified sharply following calls by the Sudanese government for refugees to return home.
Sahar, Sudanese activist in Cairo
Fifteen-year-old Mohamed, speaking to Atar with his family’s consent, recounted narrowly escaping arrest while walking with two friends. A third companion was detained and placed in a police vehicle before being released.
“We were walking on the sidewalk to buy things from the mall when the ‘sweep’ cars sped toward us, a small car and a larger one,” he said. “My friend and I ran. The officer, with three stars on his shoulder, aimed his weapon at us and shouted obscenities, threatening to shoot if we didn’t stop. Our third friend didn’t run. They took him, drove a short distance, then released him after beating and threatening him.”
Mohamed said he witnessed officers tear up residence cards belonging to Sudanese detainees.
Fatima Badr Al-Din (a pseudonym), a teacher at a Sudanese school in Cairo, described widespread fear among students.
“We are constantly anxious about the children’s fate,” she said. “We wait for raids to subside before dismissing students, often organising tuk-tuks (three-wheeled motorized vehicles widely used for and affordable short-distance urban transport) or private transport. Sometimes we cancel outdoor activities to avoid exposing them.”
High school students are particularly vulnerable. Some, she noted, have been arrested and detained in Bulaq despite holding valid residency permits.
Sahar, a Sudanese activist who has lived in Cairo for more than 15 years, said that enforcement campaigns against foreigners are not new but have intensified sharply over the past three months. She noted that while Africans and Syrians have been affected, enforcement has intensified sharply against Sudanese nationals following calls by the Sudanese government for refugees to return home. She added, “This is reinforced by the Sudanese government’s silence over the horrific violations committed against refugees and the embassy’s abandonment of its duty to protect them.”
According to Sahar, raids have targeted neighbourhoods with significant Sudanese populations, including Badr, Faisal, Bulaq, Ard Al-Liwaa, Hadayek Al-Ahram, Dahshur, and Al-Mohandessin’s Ahmed Abdel Aziz Street.
Arrests occur in streets, public transport, checkpoints, and residential buildings.
In Helwan, she said, police raided a building housing Sudanese residents, detaining four young men who were released after four days, allegedly following financial payments. In downtown Cairo’s Al-Masmat Street, she reported, women were detained in a microbus sweep; some secured release through payments, while others remained in custody.
What Did the Sudanese Embassy Say?
Sudan’s ambassador to Egypt, Lieutenant General Imad El-Din Adawi, denied what he described as rumours that Khartoum had requested restrictions on Sudanese nationals in Egypt. Speaking at a press conference at the Sudanese embassy in Cairo on January 30, 2026, Adawi acknowledged rising numbers of deportations for procedural residency violations. In 2025, 2,974 Sudanese nationals were deported.
Of these, 1,765 were issued emergency travel documents by the embassy after detention by Egyptian authorities. Others were deported despite possessing identification papers due to residency infractions. In December 2025, 207 deportations were recorded; in January 2026, the figure rose to 371, including 128 issued with travel documents prior to removal.
The ambassador said approximately 400 Sudanese prisoners are currently held in Egypt, a figure he described as limited compared to an estimated Sudanese community of six million. He emphasized Egypt’s sovereign right to regulate residency and asylum laws and cited measures to grant work permits and reduce associated fees. He urged Sudanese nationals to comply with legal requirements, noting that the embassy’s role centres on consular services, addressing community affairs, and coordinating voluntary return initiatives.
Forced Return
The Refugees Platform in Egypt estimated that approximately 5,000 refugees were targeted during the final week of January and the first week of February alone. In its report: No Safe Haven: An Unprecedented Security Campaign Against Refugees in Egypt (December 20, 2025 – January 31, 2026), the organization documents expanded patterns of arrest, detention, and deportation, including home raids, detention of women and children, and reports of disappearances following street or transit stops.
The report cites investigative findings indicating intensified weekly transfers of hundreds of detainees from Cairo police stations to Aswan in preparation for deportation to Sudan. Between April and August 2025, hundreds were detained in Greater Cairo, Alexandria, and Matrouh; since August, more than 1,500 cases of detention followed by deportation have been documented, culminating in the largest campaign to date by the end of 2025.
It further noted that January 2026 saw a coordinated surge in online hate speech targeting refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants, rhetoric that coincided with, and appeared to legitimize, the security escalation on the ground.
It was not safety that drove us home, but exhaustion.
Mardiya Abdalla, Sudanese refugee in Egypt
Speaking to Atar, Mardiya Abdalla, a refugee who had lived in Egypt for two years, said she returned voluntarily to her home in Karrari on February 5 with her family after mounting arrests and rising hostility.
“People are caught between two fires: the hell of tension here and the fear of returning to war,” she said. “We could no longer endure the daily humiliation. We moved cautiously, calculating every step to avoid arrest. The police changed tactics, wearing civilian clothes and detaining women, children, and students.”
Her brother returned earlier, fearing arrest.
“Once he repaired the house, we agreed to return immediately,” she mentioned. “It was not safety that drove us home, but exhaustion.”
