Released on July 15th, 2025

Egypt’s borders and nearby areas, especially in southern cities such as Aswan, Abu Simbel, Arqeen, and Shalateen which experience harsh climatic conditions during the summer months, with temperatures often exceeding 45 degrees Celsius and reaching nearly 50 degrees, which took place in June 2024, due to the arduous desert nature and the militarization of these areas according to Presidential Decree No. 444 of 2014 2014, border areas and areas adjacent to the border were classified as military zones where presence is prohibited. This reality has paralyzed the ability of humanitarian organizations to provide support or contribute to the implementation of rescue missions, hindering any urgent intervention or the establishment of an effective joint emergency response mechanism, because of the Egyptian authorities’ failure to allow the establishment of border reception and registration points for refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers.

With Egyptian authorities imposing severe restrictions on regular entry and the cost of security coordination to obtain a visa exceeding $2,000 USD, tens of thousands of forcibly displaced Sudanese people fleeing the war are forced to take harsh, unpaved desert roads that are subject to military regulations and restrictions. These unsafe routes, that forcibly displaced people resort to out of necessity and not choice, are a breeding ground for death with a complete lack of any humanitarian services or emergency responses. 

Forcibly displaced people travel in small groups, on foot or using rudimentary means of transportation, surrounded by danger from every direction: thirst, hunger, physical exhaustion, and isolation from the outside world. Women, children, the chronically ill and the elderly, who do not have the physical capacity or knowledge to withstand the harsh conditions of the desert, are particularly vulnerable.

Search and rescue throughout the desert is as much a legal obligation as it is at sea

According to International Organization for Migration (IOM) reports, more than 3,400 deaths and disappearances of forcibly displaced people were recorded in the North African region during 2024, mostly throughout the remote desert areas between Sudan, Egypt and Libya. Many of which are the direct result of thirst, heatstroke, lack of water and food, and amid the absence of effective rescue mechanisms. Information documented by civil society organizations in Egypt during summer 2024 confirms these appalling statistics. Between June 7th and 9th, 2024, a deadly heat wave led to the deaths of between 40 and 80 forcibly displaced Sudanese people trying to cross the Egyptian desert unlawfully in less than 48 hours. According to the Sudanese consul in Aswan, 51 bodies were buried within a few days, some in mass graves. Aswan hospitals received dozens of injured people, and the bodies of entire families were found next to cars that broke down or after they lost their way deep into the desert.  

Based on official documents and medical records, the Refugee Platform in Egypt documented the death of at least 27 forcibly displaced Sudanese people between June and September 2024, while attempting to cross into Egypt through the desert by unlawful means. These documents indicate that the deaths were the result of high temperatures, running out of water and food, and the absence of any ambulance services or humanitarian intervention in the desert border areas that the Sudanese citizens traveled through to reach Egyptian territory.

Among these cases, on July 9th, 2024, Al-Monitor reviewed an official report showing that a Sudanese woman and her two children died upon arrival at Aswan General Hospital, after being lost in the desert for several days without water or food and suffering from fatal sunstroke. On June 27th, 2024, an 83-year-old Sudanese man was transferred to Aswan Hospital, accompanied by his 14-year-old grandson, as a result of severe circulatory collapse and dehydration caused by heat exhaustion during his arduous journey from Sudan to Egypt. On September 5th, 2024, a young Sudanese woman, seven months pregnant, died during her journey to Egypt, as a result of pregnancy poisoning (concussion), as well as cardiac and respiratory arrest, which was documented by a government hospital in Aswan. The platform documented the death of another forcibly displaced person in a car upon her arrival from Sudan to Egypt, as she suffered from severe chest pain and severe dehydration. 

Imprisonment instead of protection and rescue

From February to August 2024, the Refugee Platform in Egypt documented dozens of traffic accidents involving forcibly displaced people traveling inside Egypt, recording the injury of approximately 165 forcibly displaced people and the death of 19 forcibly displaced people as a result of these accidents.

According to dozens of testimonies obtained by the platform, the Egyptian authorities do not treat survivors as victims, but rather criminalize them and detain them for varying periods of time, including the injured, and oftentimes before they complete their medical treatment at hospitals. These forcibly displaced people are charged with smuggling, only to be subsequently released by the public prosecution due to not having smuggled anyone or anything. Nonetheless, forcibly displaced non-Egyptian citizens are not allowed to file asylum claims and are deported directly, which is a direct violation of their right to seek international protection, and forcibly displaced Egyptian citizens are imprisoned and rotated through different criminal cases without evidence to remain imprisoned. 

Missing without legal avenues for search and rescue as well as clarification of outcome and recovery 

In the same period, the Refugee Platform in Egypt documented the disappearance of dozens of forcibly displaced Sudanese people while trying to cross unlawfully into Egypt through the desert, through separate trips, including women, children, and the elderly. According to the families of the missing’s testimonies, the families tried to submit official reports to the Shellal police station but the station refused to receive them, informing the families that search and rescue operations in the desert fall under the jurisdiction of the military only without any practical action being taken. 

Subsequently, a family undertook a self-help effort to search the area where the group likely disappeared and found an abandoned car and some personal belongings, including the birth certificate of a child who was among the missing. The family was unable to continue the search as their request for passage to Shalateen was denied by border guards. Although there exists a major search and rescue center for the Egyptian armed forces, search and rescue operations in desert border areas are very rare and are usually limited to naval or airplane incidents. In fact, there have been no official search and rescue operations for non-Egyptians or Egyptians in the desert during the recent waves of displacement, despite repeated incidents of mass death. 

There are no emergency teams, ambulance stations, or safe humanitarian corridors on the southern or western borders, which also affects local communities whose members go out hunting or hiking in the desert and, in light of climate collapse, the need for emergency as well as search and rescue services in these areas increases.

The Egyptian state’s continued militarization of border areas and the criminalization of anyone who attempts to cross them without permission, including forcibly displaced people fleeing conflict, not only reflects a draconian security approach, but reveals a systematic policy of excluding the most vulnerable and leaving them to perish in the heart of the desert. This approach, based on deterrence rather than protection, and restriction rather than intervention, has not led to control or regulation of the issue, but rather contributes to the worsening of the crisis on the ground.

In the near-total absence of rescue teams, border desert areas have turned into wide-open death zones, where forcibly displaced people lose their lives to thirst, disorientation, or scorching heat waves. These tragedies are not limited to non-Egyptians; recent years have documented the deaths of Egyptian citizens who got lost or were stranded in areas adjacent to the border without any help reaching them.

These incidents are neither exceptional nor surprising. They are the direct result of the state’s abandonment of its most basic legal and humanitarian responsibilities. The absence of rescue is not merely an administrative failure, but a clear violation of Egypt’s obligations under international law, primarily Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that ‘the right to life is an inherent right of every human being’ as well as the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which obliges states to provide protection and assistance without discrimination.

By ignoring the reality of increase in forced displacement across Egyptian territory and refusing to recognize the reality of migration in the context of conflict and climate collapse, the state only deepens the scope of humanitarian catastrophe. If this pattern of systematic neglect and willful abandonment is not broken, the number of victims will continue to rise, and the desert will remain a silent witness to the state’s failure to protect those who have taken refuge on its soil. 

As such, the Refugee Platform in Egypt calls for

• The establishment of a national mechanism for emergency response and desert rescue:

Establish specialized civilian search and rescue teams in the southern and western border areas, working permanently and in coordination with local and international humanitarian organizations. These teams should be equipped with water, first aid, and means of communication, while establishing emergency reception points equipped with shade, food, and safe transportation for more vulnerable groups of people, specifically children, women, and the elderly.

• The enablement of humanitarian access to border areas:

Amend existing security restrictions and regulations to ensure that humanitarian organizations and relief teams are allowed immediate access to border areas when necessary, so they fall in line with Egypt’s obligations under international law, specifically human rights and refugee protection conventions. 

• The investigation of deaths and holding those responsible accountable:

Open independent and transparent investigations into all border deaths, publish their findings, and ensure that the bodies of victims are returned to their families quickly and that their human dignity is respected.

• The establishment of an independent coordinating body to protect lives at land borders:

Establish an independent national body to oversee search and rescue missions as well as refugee protection operations, including representatives from relevant ministries, international organizations, and civil society initiatives, who operate according to international coordination standards (such as the International Manual for Search and Rescue Operations (IAMSAR)). 

• Compliance with relevant international conventions:

Egypt’s full commitment to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), and the 1979 Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue (SAR), apply humanitarian protection standards in all border procedures, stop criminalizing asylum seekers who survive car accidents in border areas, and provide border registration points that enable refugees to claim asylum upon arrival to ensure tangible protection.

A final appeal:

Protecting lives is a responsibility that cannot be relegated or bargained. Ignoring the repeated consequences and warnings regarding natural elements and the absence of any preparations to rescue refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants stranded in the desert is a neglect of the most basic tenets of human rights.

We hold the Egyptian state legally and morally responsible for every life lost as a result of this inaction.

Any further delay in implementing these measures will constitute a grave violation of the right to life and a material evasion of international and humanitarian responsibility.

Refugees Platform in Egypt

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