Source: Amnesty International –
In recent months, the Egyptian authorities renewed their campaign of arbitrarily detaining and unlawfully deporting refugees and asylum seekers solely on the basis of their irregular immigration status in blatant violation of the principle of non-refoulement and Egypt’s own asylum law, Amnesty International said today. Refugees or asylum seekers registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are among those unlawfully deported or arbitrarily detained pending deportation.
Since late December 2025, police officers in plain clothes have been arbitrarily rounding up nationals of Syria, Sudan, South Sudan and other Sub-Saharan countries from the streets or their workplaces in cities across the country following identity checks. Those found without valid residency permits were driven away in unmarked vans, even when they were able to produce UNHCR cards.
The Egyptian authorities must immediately release all refugees and asylum seekers arbitrarily detained solely on immigration grounds and halt deportations of anyone entitled to protection under international law.
Mahmoud Shalaby, Egypt and Libya Researcher at Amnesty International.
“Refugees who have fled war, persecution or humanitarian crises should not be forced to live in daily fear of being arbitrarily arrested and deported back to a place where they are at risk of grave human rights violations. By forcibly expelling refugees and asylum seekers, Egyptian authorities are not only flagrantly flouting international human rights and refugee law, but they are also breaching the protections afforded in the country’s own recently passed asylum law prohibiting refoulment of recognized refugees,” said Mahmoud Shalaby, Egypt and Libya Researcher at Amnesty International.
“Fearing arrest and deportation, families have been forced into hiding at home, living in limbo and unable to access work or education. Many are struggling to survive after the primary breadwinner of the family had been detained or deported. The Egyptian authorities must immediately release all refugees and asylum seekers arbitrarily detained solely on immigration grounds and halt deportations of anyone entitled to protection under international law.”
Amnesty International documented security forces’ arbitrary arrest of 22 refugees and asylum seekers, including one child and two women, from their homes, the streets or at security checkpoints between late December 2025 and 5 February 2026 in Cairo, Giza, Al-Qalyubia and Alexandria governorates. Those arrested and detained are refugees and asylum seekers from Sudan, Syria and South Sudan, 15 of whom are registered with UNHCR.
Of this group, security forces have deported one Syrian asylum seeker registered with UNHCR. The 21 others remain at risk of deportation as the authorities had already begun their deportation procedures even though prosecutors had ordered the release of 19 of them, while three had scheduled residency renewal appointments with the immigration department.
There are no available statistics on deportations of Syrians, but Egyptian NGOs sounded the alarm about the rise in unlawful deportations of Syrian nationals in mid-January. On 17 January, the Syrian embassy in Cairo stated that it had received information from the Egyptian authorities that they were conducting “periodic verification campaigns on residency permits.” The embassy advised Syrians to always carry a valid residency permit.
On 31 January, the Sudanese Ambassador to Cairo said in a press conference that 207 Sudanese nationals were returned from Egypt in December 2025 and another 371 in January 2026, without clarifying whether these were deportations carried out by security forces or whether individuals were compelled to return home through programmes coordinated by the Sudanese embassy and Egyptian authorities, in order to avoid indefinite detention or risk of arrest. He added that around 400 Sudanese nationals were currently detained in Egypt, without clarifying the grounds.
Since the outbreak of armed conflict in Sudan in 2023, Egyptian authorities have periodically carried out intensified identity checks targeting foreign nationals, detaining those who lack documentation and subsequently deporting them. The Egyptian government does not publish official figures on deportations. As of January 2026, 1,099,024 refugees and asylum seekers were registered with UNHCR.
Amnesty International interviewed a former detainee, four relatives of detained refugees and asylum seekers, a friend of a released asylum seeker, a lawyer representing detainees, four refugees and asylum seekers whose families are confined at home due to the crackdown, and two community activists. The organization also spoke with two staff members at the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, who both documented cases of arbitrary arrests and unlawful deportations of refugees and asylum seekers.