Security Campaigns Push Sudanese to Return From Egypt Through Arqin Crossing Before Eid Al-Fitr

Days before Eid al-Fitr, Sudanese Mohamed Al-Sayed (33) boarded a bus from the Faisal district in Giza Governorate to Aswan, where the land border crossing between Egypt and Sudan is located at Arqin, after only ten months in Egypt.

“The Cairo-Cape Town Pan-African Highway, linking Egypt to South Africa, is slated to be completed in 2024”

Ahraminfo

Asharq Al-Awsat reported that voluntary return journeys saw an uptick in the past two weeks despite a decline in free return trips, attributing it to security campaigns to deport Sudanese without valid residence permits.

Ahraminfo

The war in Sudan has driven millions to flee, including about 1.5 million who entered Egypt, while more than 428,000 Sudanese left via land crossings from early 2024 through the end of 2025, according to official Sudanese estimates cited by Asharq Al-Awsat.

At Arqin, the director and supervisor of the crossings, Brig. Mubarak Dawood Suleiman, said in a press statement that “the crossing continues to see a steady increase in the number of returnees in the wake of Eid al-Fitr,” with daily arrivals ranging between 1,500 and 2,000 people.

Al-Jazeera Net described the same Arqin crossing as crowded and marked by “a harsh wait under the sun,” with families carrying suitcases and staying for days in the open amid high temperatures and a shortage of water, food, and basic services.

Al-Jazeera Net said those stranded shared clips and testimonies of difficult humanitarian conditions at Arqin, where many families stayed for days in the open amid high temperatures and a sharp shortage of water, food, and basic services.

Activists told Al-Jazeera Net that authorities were in “a deep sleep,” while Sudanese families lay on the ground for several days waiting for transport in the absence of buses, rising levies and road fees, and rising fuel prices.

Al-Jazeera Net

Asharq Al-Awsat reported that the Arqin land port last Friday saw crowds of returnees after bus drivers announced a strike in protest of higher taxes on their buses.

After hours of the crisis, Sudanese Prime Minister Kamal Idris decided to raise the taxes, and the drivers resumed their trips into Sudan, according to Asharq Al-Awsat.

Al-Jazeera Net added that the director of the Arqin border crossing, Brigadier Mubarak Dawood, said the movement of trips was operating normally until Saturday daytime before congestion reached about five thousand stranded, and he attributed it to bus owners’ reluctance to operate on the Arqin line due to ticket-price differences.

Asharq Al-Awsat reported that prices for trips rose to about 1,000 Egyptian pounds and that trips were now 3,500 pounds per person, attributing the increase to higher fuel prices.

“Days before Eid al-Fitr, the Sudanese Mohamed Al-Sayed (33) boarded a bus from the Faisal district in Giza Governorate, Egypt, to Aswan in the south of the country, where the land border crossing between the two countries is located, after only ten months he had spent in Egypt, while his family remained in the Al-Jazeera area of Sudan, attributing the quick decision to return, without completing the treatment for which he had come, to the Egyptian deportation campaigns against violators of residence permits”

Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat

The same report said the free return trips that began in July of last year and continued until the end of the year helped bring tens of thousands back, but they stopped at the start of this year while funding to resume them was sought.

Al-Jazeera Net warned that continuing the Arqin situation, especially with deaths among the stranded, could lead to a humanitarian catastrophe if urgent intervention is not taken.

It also said that “three Sudanese refugees died in the vicinity of the crossing,” while tens of thousands were left in the open under the desert sun after promises of voluntary return and easy transport.

As the crisis eased, Brigadier Mubarak Dawood confirmed to Al-Jazeera Net that the crisis was beginning to ease after providing a number of travel buses to transport returnees to their various states, with an expectation that the crisis would end by Monday evening.