CAIRO (Middle East Eye) – Thousands of people in Egypt’s war-torn North Sinai are facing displacement by the military as plans move ahead to evacuate parts of Arish city to make way for a new Suez Canal port, sources and residents have told Middle East Eye.
No official number has been announced, but residents and activists have calculated that around 21,000 residents will be affected by the planned port at el-Arish, which sits on the Mediterranean coast to the east of the mouth of the canal and is the biggest city in the peninsula.
The MP for Arish, Rahmi Bakir, put the number at about 4,000.
The move is part of plans by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s government to privatize companies and other assets belonging to the Suez Canal Authority, allowing foreign investors or entities to control six strategic ports overlooking the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, including the port at Arish.
The privatization is part of several acquisitions by foreign, mainly Persian Gulf, countries in Egypt, which it is hoped will prop up the country’s struggling economy.
But in a rare show of defiance in the heavily securitized peninsula, local residents have been protesting daily in front of the North Sinai governorate building, in the Rayisa area of the city, hoping for either a cancellation of the development or proper compensation for those who are evacuated.
“They have to kill us in order to kick us out,” Khorshid, a baker whose house is under threat of demolition, told Middle East Eye. “Our houses are our honor.”
Early in January, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly told the press that the development work taking place in the port of Arish, was part of “the strategy to develop Egyptian ports and raise their trading capacity... in pursuit of the sustainable development strategy of the Egyptian state”.
Previously the land was publicly owned, but in 2019 a presidential decree included “re-allocating an area... of state-owned private land in the North Sinai governorate, for the benefit of the Armed Forces, to be used in the expansion and development of Arish Port”.
The Armed Forces Engineering Authority is responsible for the development of the port and the surrounding area.
The developments entail the removal of residential areas surrounding the port and its administrative buildings, especially in the wider Rayisa district, which houses around 21,000 people, according to the North Sinai governorate.
The construction will include widening the platforms used to load and unload shipments and containers to and from ships.