Discussed: Egyptian Red Crescent plays epic role in Sudan crisis

CAIRO - 29 April 2023: The Egyptian Red Crescent has played an epic role in the Sudan crisis, working in full swing to help returnees at Arqeen crossing border that separates Egypt and Sudan. 

 

The Red Crescent team members are racing against time to provide medical, psychological care and logistical support to the Egyptian nationals coming from Sudan after their evacuation, as they always do in adversity and crises.

 

For more than 10 days, they were present at the Arqeen crossing and the Qustal crossing in order to facilitate the process of returning of Egyptians to their homeland safely.

 

Moataz Abdel Ghaffar, a member of the Relief and Disasters Department of the Egyptian Red Crescent, says that the Egyptian Red Crescent is a support body for the local authorities, and since the Sudanese crisis, it has intervened with a rapid response at the time of the events, and has been present in the city of Abu Simbel since April 16, and has begun to take positive steps in response to serve people coming through the Arqeen crossing of Egyptians and different nationalities.

 

Providing logistic services 

 

Abdel Ghaffar added, to Al-Watan newspaper, that the Egyptian Red Crescent provides logistical services, including assistance in carrying the bags of the elderly and delivering them to their place of transportation, and a personal hygiene service by distributing personal hygiene equipment such as: “towels, soap, napkins... and others,” in addition to providing meals, water, dates and biscuits. 

 

They also helped the returnees to reach out to their families.  

 

A member of the Relief and Disaster Management Department of the Egyptian Red Crescent explains that there is a lot of work being done on the home delivery service for those who do not have enough funds to return to their homes, by booking private buses in agreement with companies and owners of microbuses in Aswan and Abu Simbel. To transport the Egyptian nationals to the Karkar parking lot, then the reservation is made from the parking lot to the governorate to which the returner is heading, which is included in the service of restoring family links and family reunification.

 

And about the returnees’ feelings of providing these services, he stressed that the Egyptian nationals are happy to reach their homeland, and the Sudanese and other expatriates felt that they are in their country and not strangers, pointing out that the Egyptian authorities are striving to facilitate their crossing to Egypt and provide them with all means of care, within the scope of the procedures followed by the state. .