4,000 families at risk of displacement in North Sinai’s Arish

Almost 4,000 Egyptian families are at risk of being displaced from Arish, the capital of North Sinai, as a result of the Egyptian army’s campaign to expand the port.

According to a report by Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, the targeted area is the only residential region along the coast and so Sinai officials have tried to mediate with the army to persuade them to ease off and expand into a different direction.

A resident of the Raisa neighbourhood, who will be imminently displaced, told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that time is running out for the residents.

Yasser Abdul-Ghani called on all residents to unify to confront the military’s actions in the region.

Rafah has already been razed to the ground by the Egyptian government and between 70,000 and 100,000 people forcibly displaced.

Since he assumed power the General-turned-President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has overseen a heavy-handed war on terror in the Sinai Peninsula.

Video evidence has emerged showing that unarmed civilians have been extrajudicially killed by the armed forces and then portrayed to be terrorists online. War crimes, including against children, have been documented.

The government has offered little if no compensation at all for the homes and farmland it has demolished and has continued to ramp up security in the governorate despite the suffocating effect it has had on the people there.

On the anniversary of the Egyptian revolution, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly issued a ministerial order imposing a partial curfew on parts of North Sinai.

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