CAIRO: Traders at the textile market in Cairo’s Al-Azhar district were once used to seeing their shops filled with customers, but soaring prices have driven many away.
The reason for the spiraling costs — drastic reforms that the government pledged would bring benefits to the turmoil-hit nation.
But far from improvements, many Egyptians say they feel worse off, and the economic woes could present the major challenge for President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as he approaches an election essentially unopposed.
“People who want to get married these days have to wait; there is no money for anyone to buy anything,” said Shaimaa, a homemaker in her 30s, as she looked for some fabric.
“Years ago, the salary was enough and there was even a surplus, but now a salary that is even as high as three thousand, or four thousand pounds a month is not enough.”
Egypt’s presidential vote from March 26-28 is the third since a 2011 uprising toppled longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak, and Sisi looks certain to win a second four-year term.
Most of his rivals have either been sidelined or withdrawn and the only other candidate, Moussa Mostafa Moussa, has himself previously expressed support for the ex-military chief.
While there is little competition at the ballot box the economic discontent facing many Egyptians could prove a bigger political issue.
Shaken by the 2011 revolt and the years of turmoil that followed, Egypt implemented a set of radical economic reforms linked to a three-year $12-billion loan the International Monetary Fund approved in November 2016.
The steps included the adoption of a value-added tax, energy subsidy cuts, and floating the pound, which halved its value against the dollar in the import-reliant country.
Sayyed Mahmoud, 50, one of the biggest fabrics merchants in Al-Azhar district, sits outside his store, blaming “the pound’s flotation” for the slump.
“This decision changed everything. Prices went up threefold and fourfold,” said Mahmoud.
“A blanket that was 200 pounds, now costs 800 pounds,” said Mahmoud.
Since the currency move the inflation rate has soared, reaching a high of 34.2 percent in July.
Meanwhile some 28 percent of Egyptians, or 93 million people, now live under the poverty line, according to official figures.
While some of the government’s measures were positive, floating the pound was handled “the worst,” said Alia El Mahdi, the former dean of the faculty of Economics and Political Science at Cairo University.
“If the economic improvement comes at the expense of people’s living standards, then the target of the reform program was not met,” she said.
Despite the soaring inflation and rising poverty, Sisi insists that his first term has seen an “unprecedented boom.”
Since his election in 2014 after the military ouster of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt has been working on a series of mega projects.
The large-scale national projects included the expansion of the Suez Canal, which ended in 2015, about year after Sisi’s inauguration.
After its completion, Sisi announced another ambitious project: a new capital that is currently being built over about 170 square kilometers and should begin functioning next year.
“We are about to finish about 11,000 projects ... with a cost of about two trillion pounds,” Sisi said in January.
Hailing the economic successes during his term he pointed to a rise in foreign currency reserves to $37 billion and a drop of unemployment to 11.9 percent.
But economists like Mahdi said that if the government wanted to build sustainable growth it needed to focus on bolstering “industry, agriculture, and services to reduce unemployment in a lasting and real way.”
“National projects only need temporary workers,” she said.
And while the IMF in January declared a “favorable” economic outlook for Egypt after growth of 4.2 percent in the fiscal year to June 2017, many are not feeling it.
Like fabric vendor Mahmoud, who is adamant that he has not seen any improvements.
“The state’s political leadership works correctly and has accomplished many massive projects, and I support Sisi through and through, but where is the return for me at the moment?”
Egyptians, facing soaring prices, not tasting fruit of government reforms
Egyptians, facing soaring prices, not tasting fruit of government reforms
Paramilitary attack on Sudan famine-hit camp kills 25: activists
The attack, which involved shelling and intense gunfire, “targeted Zamzam displacement camp from both the southern and eastern directions,” said the local resistance committee, a volunteer aid group in North Darfur’s besieged capital of El-Fasher.
Zamzam and other densely populated camps for the displaced around El-Fasher have suffered heavily during nearly two years of fighting between Sudan’s army and the RSF.
The paramilitaries have stepped up its efforts to complete their conquest of Darfur, Sudan’s vast western region, since losing control of the capital Khartoum last month.
Eyewitnesses described seeing RSF combat vehicles infiltrating the camp under cover of heavy gunfire.
The local resistance committee said the attack was met with counter-fire but the full extent of damage was unclear due to disrupted communications and Internet shutdowns.
Zamzam was the first part of Sudan where a UN-backed assessment declared famine last year.
The conflict in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million since a struggle for power between rival generals erupted into full-blown war on April 15, 2023.
More Sudanese refugees fleeing as far as Europe, UN refugee agency says
- Olga Sarrado, UN refugee agency spokesperson, told a press briefing in Geneva that some 484 Sudanese had arrived in Europe in January and February, up 38 percent from the same period last year
GENEVA: Over a thousand Sudanese refugees have reached or attempted to reach Europe in early 2025, the United Nations’ refugee agency said on Friday, citing growing desperation in part due to reduced aid in the region.
Some 12 million people have been displaced by the two-year conflict between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has fueled what UN officials call the world’s most devastating aid crisis.
While some have recently returned home to Khartoum, millions of others in neighboring countries like Egypt and Chad face tough choices as services for refugees are being cut, including by the United States as part of an aid review.
Olga Sarrado, UN refugee agency spokesperson, told a press briefing in Geneva that some 484 Sudanese had arrived in Europe in January and February, up 38 percent from the same period last year.
Around 937 others were rescued or intercepted at sea and returned to Libya — more than double last year’s figures for the same period, she added.
“As humanitarian aid crumbles and if the war does not abate, many more will have little choice than to join them,” she said.
Migrant deaths hit a record last year, the UN migration agency said, with many perishing on the Mediterranean crossing which is one of the world’s most dangerous.
UN: 36 Israeli strikes in Gaza killed ‘only women and children’
- UN rights office spokesperson warns the military strikes across Gaza were ‘leaving nowhere safe’
- Israel has said its troops are seizing ‘large areas’ in Gaza and incorporating them into buffer zones cleared of their inhabitants
GENEVA: The United Nations on Friday said it analysis of 36 Israeli strikes in Gaza showed only women and children were killed and decried the human cost of the war.
The UN rights office also warned that expanding Israeli evacuation orders were resulting in the “forcible transfer” of people into ever-shrinking spaces in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani warned the military strikes across Gaza were “leaving nowhere safe.”
“Between 18 March and 9 April 2025, there were some 224 incidents of Israeli strikes on residential buildings and tents for internally displaced people,” she told reporters in Geneva.
“In some 36 strikes about which the UN Human Rights Office corroborated information, the fatalities recorded so far were only women and children,” she said.
“Overall, a large percentage of fatalities are children and women, according to information recorded by our Office,” she added.
Shamdasani cited an April 6 strike on a residential building of the Abu Issa family in Deir al Balah, which reportedly killed one girl, four women, and one four-year-old boy.
She highlighted that even the areas where Palestinians were being instructed to go in the expanding number of Israeli “evacuation orders” were also being subjected to attacks.
“Despite Israeli military orders instructing civilians to relocate to the Al Mawasi area of Khan Younis, strikes continued on tents in that area housing displaced people, with at least 23 such incidents recorded by the Office since 18 March,” she said.
Shamdasani referred to a March 31 order by the Israeli military covering all of Rafah, the southernmost governorate in Gaza, followed by a large-scale ground operation.
Israel has said its troops are seizing “large areas” in Gaza and incorporating them into buffer zones cleared of their inhabitants.
“Large areas are being seized and added to Israel’s security zones, leaving Gaza smaller and more isolated,” Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday.
“Let us be clear, these so-called evacuation orders are actually displacement orders, leading to displacement of the population of Gaza into ever shrinking spaces,” Shamdasani said.
“The permanently displacing the civilian population within occupied territories amounts to forcible transfer, which is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and it is a crime against humanity.”
WHO: Medicine critically low due to Gaza aid block
- Lack of medicine making it hard to keep hospitals even partially operational
GENEVA: Medicine stocks are critically low due to the aid block in Gaza, making it hard to keep hospitals even partially operational, the World Health Organization said on Friday.
“We are critically low in our three warehouses, on antibiotics, IV fluids and blood bags,” WHO official Rik Peeperkorn told reporters in Geneva via video link from Jerusalem.
Yemen ‘not a battleground for settling scores,’ says top government official
- Brig. Gen. Tariq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh calls for stronger support for Yemeni forces on the ground to restore balance
DUBAI: Yemen is “not a battleground for settling scores, nor part of any external compromises,” a top government official told Asharq Al-Awsat in an exclusive interview.
Brig. Gen. Tariq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, a member of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council with vice-presidential rank, further emphasized that diminishing the country to a pawn between powerful nations engaged in political play undermines its sovereignty and regional security.
“The world would be making a mistake by accepting Yemen as a bargaining chip in Iranian negotiations,” said Saleh, who also heads the Political Bureau of the National Resistance. He also emphasized Yemen’s strategic importance to global shipping routes.
Saleh has remained largely out of public view since the US intensified its air campaign against the Iran-aligned Houthis to stop the threat they pose to civilian shipping and military vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
He further warned that keeping Yemen “a base for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard” threatens not only Yemenis but also regional and international interests.
But achieving stability in the conflict-ridden country hinges on supporting a national state rooted in constitutional rule and genuine popular consensus, not on short-term geopolitical deals, Saleh added.
He called for stronger support for Yemeni forces on the ground to restore balance, not as a tool for escalation, but because it is a national imperative to protect civilians and preserve hard-won gains.
He said the Yemeni government was in ongoing coordination with international partners and the Saudi-led coalition backing legitimacy in Yemen to secure further assistance for the national struggle.
Cooperation with regional and international partners to bolster the country’s coast guard, particularly in the Red Sea, a strategic artery for global trade, also continues, the Yemeni official said.
Maritime security cannot be separated from national sovereignty, and defending sea lanes was integral to restoring state authority on land and at sea, Saleh said.
On achieving peace in Yemen, Saleh said: “There is no meaning to any settlement that does not subject the Houthis to the Yemeni constitution and the rule of law.” He discounted any notion that the militia group could be accommodated outside a constitutional framework.
“Peace cannot be granted to a group that rejects the state,” he said. “It is forged when the state regains the capacity to enforce the law and protect its citizens.”
For Saleh, forging a peace agreement with the Houthis — whom he describes as a bloodthirsty group with no commitment to national frameworks and an ideology rooted in an enemy state — was virtually nonexistent.
He accused the Houthis of placing their leadership and institutions tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps above Yemen’s state institutions.
“Governance is about managing people’s affairs based on shared frameworks,” Saleh said. “The Houthis do not abide by any of that.”
Saleh has put direct blame on Iran for perpetuating the conflict through its armed proxies, keeping Yemen hostage to violence and rebellion, although Tehran has continually denied its involvement.
Saleh also acknowledged the challenges facing the Presidential Leadership Council, and described the internal disagreements as “natural,” given the complexity of the crisis in Yemen.
“In the end,” he said, “what unites us is greater than any differences.
“Disagreements are natural in any leadership body, particularly in exceptional conditions like Yemen’s,” he said. “But more important is our ability to navigate this diversity and divergence while remaining committed to the national interest.”
