At Cairo’s central train station, the platforms are overflowing with Sudanese families boarding a one-way journey: a return to their homeland. Driven by increasingly difficult living conditions in Egypt, hundreds of refugees are now flocking each week to board free trains arranged by the Egyptian authorities. Destination: Aswan, in the south of the country, before continuing by bus to the Sudanese border.
Last Monday, around 850 people participated in this voluntary return program, jointly organized by Egyptian National Railways and Sudanese Defense Industries. It is a humanitarian operation launched at a time when departures paradoxically show no signs of slowing: according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 65,000 Sudanese have crossed into Chad in just over a month—around 1,400 people per day.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been engulfed in a civil war between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the regular army, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The conflict has already claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced over 14 million people, in what the United Nations now describes as the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”
For the 1.5 million Sudanese refugees living in Egypt, the decision to return is often driven more by necessity than hope. Although Egypt welcomed large numbers of Sudanese at the start of the conflict, many now live in precarious conditions, facing limited access to the labor market, overstretched public services, soaring rents, and an economic crisis that affects them deeply.
Sudan: Egypt launches free trains to repatriate sudanese refugees
