Egypt says it has made "strenuous efforts" in tackling illegal migration, calls for European support

During the second ministerial meeting of the EU-Horn of Africa Migration Route Initiative, also called Khartoum Process, Egypt's foreign minister Badr Abdelatty said that Egypt has made "strenuous efforts" to tackle migration and asked for more support from European nations.

According to Abdelatty, "no migrant boats" have left the Egyptian coast since 2016, when Egypt implemented its national migration strategy.

"We need the support of course to host communities, especially for basic services including healthcare, including education. Number three, we need more investment in order to create jobs. We have, as I mentioned, 10 million refugees living here and they have access to our labor market, they need more jobs," Abdelatty said.

"Otherwise, they would like to risk their lives and come into Europe via illegal migration through the Mediterranean. So, we have to do more to invest and to encourage for more public and private investment from European countries," he added.

Yet the loss of funds from the American development agency, USAID, has left a hole in humanitarian aid funds for countries along the main migration route from the Horn of Africa to Europe. These include Sudan and South Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Ethiopia and Somalia, among others.

Katja Keul, Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office of Germany said during the conference: "We all know USAID has been the biggest donor. The second biggest donor was Germany and I think it is no secret to tell you that the gap by USAID, we will not completely fill this gap, nobody is able to fill it. It's a catastrophe. But we are trying to keep up our level as much as we can."

Egypt currently hosts more than 9 million refugees, with most of them coming from Syria, Yemen and Sudan.