The Sudanese civil war has created the world’s largest forced-displacement crisis, now entering its third year. Egypt has become the main host state for Sudanese refugees, with the majority of those who have fled now living in Cairo.
These refugees — especially those without access to legal migration routes — have faced extortion, sexual abuse and violence on both sides of the Sudanese border, only to then struggle to secure adequate housing, healthcare, education and work once in Egypt.
Late last year, the Egyptian state under President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi enacted a new asylum law, which has further destabilised an already fragile humanitarian system. As conditions have worsened for Sudanese nationals — both recent arrivals and the long-standing diaspora — the EU has channelled billions of euros in loans, grants and investment-linked funds into Egypt under the countries’ Strategic and Comprehensive Partnership.
These payments have departed from conventional EU procedures for macro-financial assistance by relying on loose, non-binding political commitments rather than enforceable reform benchmarks, in an effort to stabilise the region and avert a broader migrant crisis. While privately acknowledging Egypt’s failures on human rights and civil liberties, the EU has approached its engagement through the lens of stability, while the Egyptian state has viewed the Sudan emergency primarily through the lens of security.
Through FOIA requests, internal documents, collected testimony and interviews with experts, politicians and humanitarian groups, this investigation shows how the EU’s engagement with Egypt risks entrenching the regime’s power and enabling its crackdown on Sudanese refugees.