The fair-skinned, black-clad, heavily wrinkled woman turned out to be a Syrian refugee seeking assistance. “I lost my husband and two of my children in the war in Syria and came to Egypt as a refugee,” she said in a submissive tone. “I swear to God I have not had any food in my home for two weeks now, and I need a job, any job, just to survive.”
The woman’s call for help, albeit poignant, stood in contrast to its immediate surroundings. Right across the street in the upscale Sefarat district of Nasr City, many other Syrians seem to be turning over new leaves in their lives, for example by opening successful businesses in the form of food and clothes shops and supermarkets. Even those with limited funds can be seen all over Cairo, in clubs, at mosques and even standing at traffic lights, selling home-made delicacies that seem to be selling like hot cakes.
Right next to a Syrian women’s clothing shop stands a Syrian supermarket and a shawerma shop. In between, a small mosque has laid a table at its entrance where all kinds of Syrian delicacies are offered for sale. The street buzzes with Syrian boys marketing Syrian delicacies that their mothers have made at home.
“Please take this last dish. It’s delicious – you’ll not regret it,” a Syrian boy pleaded. “I’ve been selling biscuits since this morning, and my feet are hurting. I can’t go back home to my mother unless I sell all the biscuits.”
The boy’s innocent face blushes when I offer him financial assistance. “We’re not begging, madam,” he says proudly, pushing the delicacies inside my car. “My mother would beat me if I took money for nothing. We are working to help make ends meet and to send money to my dad who is still trapped back home in Syria.”
The woman at our door shrugs at our suggestion that she should follow suit. “Home-cooking needs funds. I don’t have the money to survive, let alone run a business,” she said, waving her hands in despair.
The contrast reflects the varied life of the Syrian population in Egypt. There are those with funds who have been able to start successful small- and medium-sized businesses and those who have trouble making ends meet and are vulnerable due to the loss of a breadwinner or a disability.
The vulnerable, many observers insist, may now be growing in number due to Egypt’s present economic constraints and the inflation that has been taking its toll on many Egyptians and not only on Syrian refugees.
Those who work in factories and shops may not be making more than 1,000 Egyptian pounds (112 US dollars) to 1,500 Egyptian pounds (169 US dollars) a month, which can hardly cover the expensive rents and high cost of life in Egypt, especially for big families.
In the meantime, there are also many who have lost breadwinners, have been left with a disability, or have had breadwinners trapped in conflict-ridden Syria and not allowed to enter the country.
“Life is becoming tougher every day, so much so that sometimes I think of braving the Mediterranean to reach Europe,” Sawsan, a Syrian mother of four children, said in despair. “My brother-in-law does not agree, and he says we would drown. I really do not know what to do.”
Sawsan’s husband has been detained in Syria. “We lost everything in Syria. Our home was destroyed, my mother died, my husband was detained, and my daughter was hurt,” Sawsan said. She fled the war with her four children and brother-in-law, and all of them now live in a small apartment in the popular district of Khalil Hamada in Alexandria. She works to help ends meet, and her children are all enrolled in public schools.
Though a registered refugee, Sawsan says that delays in receiving food assistance has been making life even tougher. “We have not received UN food cards for several months,” she said, adding that many of her neighbours have not received them either. “We need the cards badly. We need to eat.”
Rana Al-Faseeh, 38, is also registered with the UNHCR. Her husband works in a factory, and her four kids are enrolled in public schools. She does not have a problem receiving the food cards, but, with four kids and expensive rent, she feels equally distressed.
“We are tired, tired, tired,” Al-Faseeh said. “My husband works for only 50 Egyptian pound (50 US dollars) a day, and all we get from the UNHCR is a 1,200 Egyptian pounds (135 US dollars) food card. But for a family of six and with expensive rent to pay, we can hardly make ends meet.”
Al-Faseeh tried to run a food project from home, but a damaged disc in her neck made her unable to pursue the project. “We pay rent of 700 Egyptian pounds (79 US dollars) a month for an ill-furnished small flat in a very poor district of Alexandria, and my daughter needs treatment for a gunshot wound she received in one eye,” Al-Faseeh said.
“We lost all our savings and our home back in Syria, and I feel bad seeking help from charity organisations. My kids are psychologically disturbed and having problems coping with the Egyptian dialect and the different educational curriculum. However, we do thank God that we are better off than many others.”
Al-Faseeh is not the only one suffering. The international NGO Refugees International (RI) came to Egypt in April 2014 in order to investigate the situation of Syrian refugees who had arrived since the conflict in their country began.
“By the end of that year, their numbers and needs were great enough for Egypt to join the UNHCR’s regional appeal for humanitarian aid to Syrians,” RI’s report said. But in spite of requests for assistance on their behalf, it found that the refugees had attracted “little attention and few resources” to meet their needs.
A more recent study by the UNHCR, in September 2015, published by the website Middle East Eye, also shows that although the Syrian community living in Egypt is usually viewed as better off than those living elsewhere in the Middle East, the majority of the refugees, or up to 90 per cent, are “now classed as highly and severely vulnerable” by the UN.
The UNHCR estimates that Syrians living in Egypt need a minimum of some 592 Egyptian pound (67 US dollars) per person per month to meet basic needs.
Syrian refugees classed as “severely vulnerable” only have access to between zero to 50 per cent of that, however. “Highly vulnerable” refugees have access to between 51 and 99 per cent of the UNHCR’s target minimum needed to “live a dignified life,” according to the UNHCR report.
“This means that close to 90 per cent of the Syrians surveyed are effectively living on or below the poverty line,” Middle East Eye wrote.
Some media reports claim that some desperate Syrian refugees in vulnerable situations find the early marriage of their female family members as the only way out of the poverty trap.
Some also resort to engaging their children in labour that is not appropriate for their age.
Feras Al-Hajj, a human rights activist at the Syrian Coalition that handles legal issues for Syrian refugees in Egypt, says that bureaucratic measures at the UNHCR, already battling to satisfy the needs of a sizable refugee crisis, also stand in the way of registering all Syrian refugees in Egypt, meaning that many do not receive any assistance.
“Only 107,000 out of an average total of 250,000 to 300,000 were registered in 2016, and only 30 per cent of those registered receive assistance in the form of a food ration card, the value of is which is LE320 per person,” Al-Hajj said.
التعليقات (0)