Deportation orders by the Interior Ministry’s National Security Service (NSS)
From time to time, the NSS deports a number of refugees, mostly Syrians. According to a 2014 report by Amnesty International, the Egyptian authorities deported at least 150 Syrian refugees to Syria or to other countries, including Turkey and Lebanon.
Illegal migration by sea
Deportation orders by the Interior Ministry’s National Security Service (NSS)
From time to time, the NSS deports a number of refugees, mostly Syrians. According to a 2014 report by Amnesty International, the Egyptian authorities deported at least 150 Syrian refugees to Syria or to other countries, including Turkey and Lebanon.
Illegal migration by sea
The ongoing war and the state’s brutal bombings campaign (exacerbated by international intervention and terrorism) has led to impossible living conditions and has forced Syrians to migrate illegally, with the help of smugglers. These perilous journeys may cost Syrian migrants all their savings and expose them to death or falling into the hands of Egyptian coast guards — ultimately leading to detainment or eventual deportation.
In 2013, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) reported the arrest of 946 people by Egyptian authorities, while en route to Europe. According to the report, 76 people were released; 146 others, including 46 children, were deported; and 724 men, women and children remained in custody for an unspecified period.
In October 2013, Amnesty International said over 300 people died, including a number of Syrians, when their boat sank as they were trying to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Africans fleeing to Israel via Sinai
Hundreds of Africans, mostly Eritreans and Sudanese, migrate to Israel via Sinai. Sometimes, this trip ends in clashes with Egyptian security forces as was the case with five Sudanese who were killed in Sinai by border guards while trying to migrate to Israel in November 2015. In the same month, security sources announced that the bodies of 15 Sudanese migrants were found shot dead south of Rafah near the border with Israel.
Some refugees manage to reach Israel. The BBC, quoting the Israeli Ministry of Interior, said more than 45,000 African migrants and asylum seekers, many of whom are Sudanese, are now in Israel. http://tinyw.in/ZqBF
Those migrating across Sinai may sometimes end up falling into the hands of human traffickers where they are tortured until these illegal traders get a ransom of between US $30-50, 000.
UNHCR says that from January 2006 to December 2012, 35,000 Eritreans entered Israel through Sinai, including 25,000 people in 2011 and 2012. UNHCR says there is no way to know the exact number of refugees who were tortured and abused because the 1,300 human trafficking victims interviewed by Physicians for Human Rights in Israel said they were tortured and abused and the number could be in the thousands. A human trafficker interviewed by Human Rights Watch in 2013 in a report entitled ‘I wished I had been dead’ said he was responsible for the death of 1,000 people, including Eritreans and other sub-Saharan Africans. Source: HRW report ‘I wished I had been dead’ on the torture of migrants in Sinai and Sudan. http://tinyw.in/LEN6
Migrants traveling across Sinai may also end up in crowded detention centers in Sinai for months amid difficult circumstances before they are court martialed for attempting to cross the borders illegally. They are then extradited to Ethiopia.
Few migrants ended up in areas controlled by Bedouins who contacted UNHCR and helped transfer them to Cairo.
