Although Egypt signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, its 1967 Protocol and the 1969 Organization of African Unity Convention, it has not yet developed a national asylum procedure. All aspects related to refugees, such as registration, documentation and status determination, fall under the responsibility of UNHCR, according to a memorandum of understanding signed in 1956 with the Egyptian government.

Although Egypt signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, its 1967 Protocol and the 1969 Organization of African Unity Convention, it has not yet developed a national asylum procedure. All aspects related to refugees, such as registration, documentation and status determination, fall under the responsibility of UNHCR, according to a memorandum of understanding signed in 1956 with the Egyptian government.

Egypt is a popular destination for refugees and asylum seekers from different nationalities, especially from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Palestine and Palestinian refugees displaced from Syria after the 2011 war.

According to UNHCR, in 2004, Egypt had over 21,000 officially registered refugees coming from 32 countries, 75 percent of them were Sudanese, 16 percent Somalis, with very few from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sierra Leone in addition to the African Great Lakes region which includes Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Democratic Republic of Congo.

UNHCR’s action plan in Egypt during 2014 included:

–    Syrian refugees;

–    Refugees from Sudan who fled the situation in Darfur and from South Sudan who had been staying in Egypt for decades and did want to return;

–    Somali refugees;

–    Eritrean refugees escaping forced recruitment or human rights violations; and

–    Iraqi refugees who escaped acts of violence.

It is difficult to know the number of non-registered migrants, not to mention those whose applications have been denied by UNHCR.

According to UNHCR, the following is a list of the number and nationalities of refugees over 2013-2015. In his meeting with United Nations High commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi however said some estimates put the number of refugees from Syria, Libya and a number of sub-Saharan African countries at five million.

Updated numbers of refugees in Egypt in August 2015

Number and nationalities of refugees over 2013-2015

Source: UNHCR Egypt.