Religious Organizations and Refugees in Egypt

by Kelsey Norman

Does cultural or religious affinity have any bearing on the treatment of refugees? Egypt provides an interesting case for exploring this question. Mention of the word ‘refugee’ in Egypt in recent months tends to illicit images from newspaper articles on the influx of approximately 150,000 Syrian refugees into Egypt over the last year. Egypt is just one of many Arab states affected by the forced migration of Syrian refugees, which is part of a larger and more long-term crisis within the region generally, as António Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, noted in a recent article for the Cairo Review of Global Affairs. Yet while floods of Iraqi, Libyan and now Syrian refugees have entered Egypt throughout the past decade, the largest and longest-standing populations of refugees in Egypt continue to be from surrounding Horn of Africa countries. At present, hundreds of thousands of African refugees reside in Egypt, the vast majority of which inhabit some of Cairo’s poorest neighborhoods.

The roles that religion and ethnicity play in the Egyptian refugee context are well illustrated through the lens of education. While Egypt is a signatory of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which stipulates that children have the right to free access to education, primary and secondary education for most refugees is inaccessible due to informal barriers. In order to attend an Egyptian school, a refugee family must be designated by the UNHCR as an official refugee, a process that can take multiple years and that proves particularly problematic for African refugee families in Cairo whose claims for asylum are often rejected. Of the 3,400 refugee children who do manage to qualify as official refugees and obtain funding to attend school from UNHCR’s implementing partner, Catholic Relief Services, only 50 percent are able to successfully enroll in Egyptian public schools. The remaining children attend one of the makeshift schools provided by Western-funded organizations that are usually affiliated with Christian churches.

However, these privately and religiously funded educational organizations are presently facing an extremely difficult operating environment. Most NGOs conducting work in Egypt are unlicensed, as official registration with the Egyptian government can take multiple years, and many fail to successfully complete the process. The ardent nationalism that the revolution awakened has created a tense and unpredictable atmosphere for foreign organizations, especially those that are unlicensed and thus in a precarious position to begin with. This is evidenced by the events of early 2012, when the transitional government decided to ‘crack down’ on specific American NGOs by raiding their offices and preventing dozens of foreign employees from leaving the country. In such an environment, there is very little room for advocacy, particularly as concerns refugees and non-nationals.

At a time when Western NGOs are thus struggling to provide basic services for clients, the comparatively ‘warm’ reception of Syrian refugees over the past year has brought to light the clear preference for co-ethnics in the Egyptian government’s treatment of refugees. For example, in September 2012, President Mohamed Morsi announced that all Syrian refugee children residing in Egypt would be able to enroll in public schools regardless of whether or not they had obtained official UNHCR status. This announcement came as a shock to those working in the refugee resettlement and protection sector, as this is certainly not a service extended to all refugee groups. In general Egypt’s modus operandi is one of neglect and ambivalence toward its long-standing African refugee population, so any public recognition and willingness to offer services to Syrian children represents an anomalous break, signifying that Egypt considers its relations with Syria, or other Arab states, to supersede the even application of rights for migrants and refugees. Some scholars of citizenship in the region attribute this preference to the pervasive idea of a common Arab lineage. Others claim that the preference has more to do with a desire to demonstrate solidarity with revolutionary activities in other Arab states. Regardless, these preferences are usually not stated overtly in law and generally operate according to policy and legislation, as demonstrated by the preference for Syrian as opposed to African refugees.

However, another recent development further complicates the way that religion factors into the treatment of refugees in Egypt. As of fall 2012, there is a new educational opportunity on offer for refugee students from an unexpected source – Al-Azhar. Historically, Al-Azhar was a prestigious university and center of Islamic learning, though now the name refers to a complex of associated educational and religious institutions, the symbolic and manifest import of which cannot be understated in the Egyptian context. As Nathan Brown explains in a 2011 publication, Al-Azhar yields influence over both the Egyptian state and various political parties and also issues fatwas (findings of religious law) that guide the religious practices of many individuals and institutions. Beginning this last year, African refugee children from Somalia or Eritrea who come to Egypt without speaking either Arabic or English may be able eligible to take classes at Al-Azhar’s language institute. With approval from the head sheikh, approximately fifty African refugee students were given the opportunity in the fall of 2012 to study Arabic throughout the academic year at a discounted rate, the cost of which was covered by Catholic Relief Services and subsidized by Al-Azhar. According to an administrator interviewed at Al-Azhar, there are plans to expand the participation rate of the program in the future.

Just as the Western-funded refugee schools affiliated with churches are open to both Christian and Muslim refugee students, the Al-Azhar language institute does not discriminate amongst its students on the basis of religion. Yet the inception of this program nonetheless raises questions about the role of religiously oriented organizations and institutions as providers of services for some of Egypt’s most vulnerable residents. Further, why is Egypt’s most prestigious Islamic institution reaching out to African refugees when state institutions refuse to do so? And given the Al-Azhar’s sway within the Egyptian cultural and political context, could this new program signal a policy shift in terms of the Egyptian government’s willingness to recognize Cairo’s long-standing African refugee population? Whether or not this program is a harbinger of other institutions becoming invested in the well-being of African refugees and proactive about providing services for them remains to be seen, but the involvement of a powerful Islamic organization in the refugee settlement and protection sector certainly constitutes an interesting and unexpected development.

Kelsey Norman is a PhD student studying political science at the University of California, Irvine. Follow her on Twitter @kelseypnorman.
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Guterres, António. “Struggle of the Middle East Refugees,” The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Spring 2013. http://www.aucegypt.edu/gapp/cairoreview/Pages/articleDetails.aspx?aid=330

Brown, Nathan J. “Post-revolutionary Al-Alzhar.” The Carnegie Papers, September 2011. http://carnegieendowment.org/files/al_azhar.pdf