Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Tuesday criticized European governments’ way of handling the migration issues and their refusal to accept refugees arriving at its borders, reported Egypt Today.
El-Sissi said his country is home to about 6 million migrants, who left their countries due to conflict and poverty.
“We didn’t reject them or put them in camps,” the Egyptian president said.” I am talking about huge numbers, not 5,000 or 10,000. Our friends in Europe refuse to receive them.”
He said migrants in refugee camps in Egypt are allowed to live freely in the community. He added that his government provides health care services, education, and other essential services to all migrants and refugees despite his country’s limited resources and economic strains.
“We made what we have available (for them) without making a fuss,” the Egyptian president said.
El-Sissi’s statement came during a session at the World Youth Forum, which is being held at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
For decades, the Egyptian government has been allowing sub-Saharan African migrants, trying to escape war or poverty, to take shelter in the country, which is a destination and a haven for some refugees as it is one the closest and easiest countries for them to enter.
The United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) said more than half of the 6 million migrants in Egypt are from Sudan and South Sudan, where tens of thousands of people are displaced annually due to continuing conflicts.
The Egyptian president said his government has tightened border security in recent years and managed to prevent migrants from using Egypt as a departure point for fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East.
According to the IOM, the number of migrants who crossed Egypt’s coasts has drastically dropped since 2016. The number of people crossing to Europe was seven times lower in 2020 than 2016.
