Northern Africa · data through 2024
Egypt sends large numbers of workers to the Gulf and hosts a growing refugee population from Sudan, Syria, and the Horn of Africa.
Twenty five year view
These lines show migrant stock, meaning people living outside their birth country at each point in time. They do not show annual arrivals.
Why people move
Gulf labour migration, largely temporary and male, has been central for fifty years and produces one of the region's largest remittance flows. Since 2023, arrivals from Sudan have added a very large new population.
Connections
Common destinations
Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, Italy, United States
Common origins
Sudan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea, Yemen
Adapting and finding support
Refugee families face high urban rents and limited formal work. Egyptians abroad cycle between contracts with little pension continuity.
Registration with the protection agency governs access to health and education services.
Use the support guideResearch that explains this pattern
Behavioural economics
A household sends one member abroad to diversify its income, so a harvest failure or a currency collapse at home no longer threatens everyone at once.
Money sent home rises after disasters and downturns, and migration decisions are made by families rather than by individuals.
Oded Stark and David Bloom, the new economics of labour migration, 1985
Behavioural economics
Living with too little money, time, or certainty consumes attention itself, leaving less capacity for planning and paperwork.
Missed appointments and delayed applications are effects of hardship rather than proof of carelessness.
Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir, Scarcity, 2013
Psychology
The strain of language, status loss, discrimination, and unfamiliar systems produces a measurable load on health, distinct from the trauma of any journey.
Distress often peaks one to three years after arrival, not on the first day.
John W. Berry and colleagues; later clinical work on migrant mental health
Support inside and beyond Egypt
Country by country guidance for refugees, people seeking asylum, and stateless people.
Refugees and people seeking asylum
OpenAssistance, voluntary return, reintegration, and counter trafficking support through the local office.
Anyone moving, arriving, or returning
OpenFamily tracing, first aid, food, shelter, and restoring family links.
People in transit and newly arrived families
OpenThese are public organisations. The project is not affiliated with them and cannot guarantee outcomes. Nothing here is legal advice or an emergency service.
Figures are rounded published estimates. Causes and adaptation differ within every country and should not be read as a verdict about any person.