Eritrean asylum seekers in Egypt are facing a rapidly deteriorating human rights crisis, marked by widespread arbitrary arrests, detention, abuse, and forced deportations to Eritrea.
These practices constitute clear violations of international refugee and human rights law.
Consistently, Eritrean refugees have been rounded up from streets, markets, public transportation, workplaces, and homes. Many are detained solely on the grounds of lacking valid residency permits, despite being registered with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) or holding official appointment letters issued by UNHCR for residency procedures.
These arrests are occurring in the context of an acute administrative crisis. This administrative paralysis has effectively stripped refugees of legal protection, exposing them to arrest and removal despite their compliance with UNHCR’s procedures.
Refugees are routinely given UNHCR appointments scheduled one to two years in advance. During this prolonged waiting period, they are left without effective protection and are exposed to daily risk of arrest, imprisonment, and deportation.
Alarmingly, UNHCR-issued appointment letters and refugee cards are frequently not recognised by Egyptian authorities. Refugees report that these documents are dismissed as invalid or “unstamped,” leaving individuals unprotected despite having complied with all required procedures. This gap between documentation and enforcement has created a protection vacuum with devastating consequences.
As a result, hundreds of Eritrean asylum seekers have been forcibly returned to Eritrea, a country they fled due to well-documented and ongoing persecution, indefinite national service, arbitrary detention, torture, and inhuman and degrading treatment. Forced returns have reportedly included women, children, and elderly individuals. In some cases, mothers have been deported without their children.
There are also deeply disturbing and credible allegations of sexual violence and abuse against detainees, including children, in detention settings. Survivors and families describe severe trauma, fear, and lasting harm. The impact on daily life is profound: many refugees no longer attend school, go to work, or move freely, living instead in constant fear of arrest and deportation.
Elizabeth Chyrum, Director of Human Rights Concern – Eritrea (HRCE), said: “What we are witnessing in Egypt is not a failure of paperwork, but a failure of protection. Eritrean asylum seekers are being arrested and deported despite doing everything they were asked to do. When official documents offer no protection and people are still sent back to persecution, the refugee system itself is being emptied of meaning.”
This situation constitutes a serious breach of the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits the return of individuals to countries where they face a real risk of persecution, torture, or other irreparable harm. It also undermines family unity, child protection standards, and basic human dignity.
While acknowledging the immense pressures faced by host countries and the financial constraints confronting humanitarian agencies, these challenges cannot justify the erosion of fundamental refugee protections or a failure to prevent life-threatening harm.
HRCE therefore urgently calls for immediate and decisive action, including:
- The Government of Egypt: to immediately cease the arbitrary arrest, detention, ill-treatment, sexual violence, and forced deportation of Eritrean asylum seekers; to end security round-ups targeting refugees; and to fully uphold its obligations under international refugee, human rights, and child protection law, including the absolute prohibition of refoulement.
- The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Egypt: to actively intervene and robustly advocate on behalf of Eritrean asylum seekers by ensuring that its documentation is formally recognised and enforced by Egyptian authorities; by taking urgent protective action in cases of arrest or detention; and by publicly and privately opposing deportations and other abuses against persons under its mandate.
- The international community, including donor states, UN human rights mechanisms, and diplomatic missions in Egypt: to urgently press the Egyptian authorities to end these violations, to demand accountability for abuse in detention settings, and to ensure that UNHCR is adequately resourced and politically supported to fulfil its protection mandate.
To prevent further harm, HRCE proposed the following steps should be urgently considered:
- Adoption of a recognised, stamped, and verifiable UNHCR appointment letter format, including electronic verification mechanisms.
- Alignment of appointment timelines with the validity of UNHCR refugee cards, ensuring continuous protection.
- Formal recognition of the UNHCR refugee card as a protective document preventing arrest and forced return.
- Allowing refugees who already hold residency permits to renew them directly through relevant authorities, where legal requirements are met, without unnecessary referral back to UNHCR.
- Expansion of service points and procedures to reflect the increased number of refugees and to reduce dangerous administrative bottlenecks.
Eritrean refugees in Egypt are not seeking special treatment. They are seeking protection from persecution, respect for their basic rights, and the ability to live without fear. Failure to act will result in further irreversible harm to some of the most vulnerable people in the region.
Failure to act will result in further irreversible harm to some of the most vulnerable people in the region. This situation demands immediate attention and decisive action, before more lives are irreparably damaged by inaction.
Human Rights Concern – Eritrea (HRCE)
