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Egypt

Egypt: Facts and figures, January – December 2019

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In Egypt, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) assists people affected by conflict and violence including from the broader region, promotes international humanitarian law (IHL), and cooperates with healthcare providers to help them boost their emergency response. The ICRC has been intermittently present in Egypt for over 100 years.

Dating back to as early as World Wars I and II and other crisis, such as the 1956 conflict over the Suez Canal and the wars of 1967 and 1973, the ICRC visited and assisted thousands of prisoners of war and civilian internees under the specific mandate conferred upon the organization by the Geneva Conventions of 1949. In 1983, the ICRC formalized its legal presence in Egypt by signing a headquarters agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and established its office in Cairo.

ICRC’s long-standing cooperation with the Egyptian Red Crescent Society has further developed with enhanced activities related to the International Red Cross and Crescent Movement’s family links services and extended into the field of direct assistance to address humanitarian needs.

In 2019, the ICRC worked closely with the Egyptian Red Crescent (ERC) in responding to the immediate needs of people affected by violence. Following the ERC’s distribution of ICRC aid to people affected by the events in North Sinai, the ICRC organized a workshop with its volunteers to further assess these people’s needs. The ERC and the ICRC then agreed on a set of short and mid-term activities for responding to the needs in North Sinai and engaged in dialogue on this with the relevant authorities.