Sudanese Refugees Band in Gangs on Cairo Streets

The streets of Cairo today are witnessing a confluence of American gang culture and strife in Sudan.

According to a Reuters report, there are nearly a million Sudanese refugees living on the streets of Egypt's capital city, regularly considered the cultural hub of the Arab world. And the ensuing strife sounds like Los Angeles in the early 1990s, only the rival gangs are not the Bloods and the Crips. In Cairo there are the Outlaws and the Lost Boys.

And they hack each other to death, as Abigail Hauslohner reports, with machetes.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, this population wave comes not from the genocide in the western Darfur region of Sudan, but from the ostensibly resolved two-decade old war with Christians in the south. As the war ended, UNHCR shifted their policy and the displaced lost their refugee status. Now the millions of Sudanese on Egyptian streets face racial discrimination and violence. They cannot find work and have joined gangs loyal to particular Cairene neighborhoods.

UNHCR wants the refugees to either return to Sudan or integrate into Egyptian society, but as is the case with so many refugee waves, without a plan for assimilation, the groups end up disenfranchised and do double damage: they lose out on opportunity, and the local region, in this case Cairo, which is a remarkably safe place, now has violence on its streets.

(Photo of downtown Cairo by Andrew Bast.)

 

Comments

[Fiona Cameron]

Reporting like this is inflammatory, dangerous and inaccurate. I have lived in Egypt for two years now, working with refugees from Sudan. Egypt is still a very safe place, and the vast majority of the Sudanese who live here are peaceful and wonderful people who are trying to rebuild their lives and who are not "hacking each other to death". There is a problem with youth/gang violence here and there are many initiatives within the community to tackle it. As with any other disenchanted and disenfranchised group of immigrants it is often difficult to find a strong sense of identity. Young men (and to a lesser extent women) join gangs for a feeling of belonging and safety. Unfortunately this has led to occasional outbreaks of violence in the streets of Cairo and tragically several deaths in the last two years, but to paint a picture of a city riven with gang violence is both wrong and dangerous.

[russische frau]

I think, this theme is quite actual now. There is a problem with youth/gang violence here and there are many initiatives within the community to tackle it. As with any other disenchanted and disenfranchised group of immigrants it is often difficult to find a strong sense of identity.