Between Borders, Bureaucracies and Resistance: Two Sudanese Women in Cairo

As Sudan’s war enters its second year, displacement has become a devastating and protracted crisis. According to the UN Refugee Agency, more than 3.8 million people have fled across borders into neighboring countries—including Egypt, South Sudan, Chad, Libya, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, and Uganda—seeking not only safety, but survival itself.

The majority of those displaced are women and children, many of whom face double the hardship—coping with trauma, forced separation, and systemic neglect, while also enduring sexual violence, discrimination, and barriers to healthcare, education, and legal protection. In Egypt, these struggles are compounded by xenophobia, poverty, and long waits for documentation—especially for women traveling alone or heading households.

Among them are Salwa (33), unmarried, a former lawyer in Sudan and a current human rights researcher based in Cairo, and Jasmeh Mohammed Bashir (39), a mother of four, feminist activist, and trauma counselor who first attempted to seek refuge in Ethiopia before eventually crossing the Argeen border into Egypt after being targeted by state security.

Though their paths were vastly different—one bureaucratic, one dangerous—they now find themselves waiting in the same city, navigating survival in slow motion.

“I’m tired of surviving. I want to start living”, says Salwa, who spends hours on embassy websites, scholarship applications, and digital language courses. “I crossed deserts, saw death, and I still wake up every night in fear,” says Jasmeh.

Their stories are not statistics.

They are evidence.

Sudanese Women Refugees in Egypt: A Complex Reality

According to UNHCR, as of early 2025, Egypt hosts the largest number of Sudanese refugees in its history, with more than 670,000 officially registered—a number that continues to rise weekly. Local aid groups estimate that the real figure may be over one million, including those still waiting for registration or living undocumented.

Most are concentrated in Cairo, Aswan, and Alexandria, with growing numbers in smaller cities. The burden falls heaviest on women, particularly those who have fled with children or without male protection. They face compounding layers of hardship—from finding safe housing and healthcare to navigating threats of sexual harassment, discrimination, and economic exploitation.

Access to essential services remains limited. Sudanese women often live in overcrowded flats or informal housing, subject to rising rent and the constant fear of eviction. Medical care is restricted to a few overburdened NGOs, and public hospitals may require documentation or upfront payment that many cannot provide. School enrollment for refugee children is bureaucratically complicated, with many Sudanese mothers forced to homeschool or send their children to community-run informal centers.

Navigating daily life is an exhausting cycle of fear and exclusion. Public spaces in Egypt are increasingly marked by xenophobia, where racial slurs and verbal harassment are commonplace. Employers exploit the undocumented status of Sudanese women to avoid contracts, reduce wages, and avoid legal responsibility. Even humanitarian aid is uneven—distributed through layers of gatekeeping, favoritism, or sheer randomness.

Yet despite this hostile environment, women have begun to organize. In neighborhoods like Zeitoun and Ain Shams, informal women-led committees have emerged—sharing safe landlord contacts, creating informal cooperatives, and building peer mental health circles. These efforts, while fragile and unsupported, reflect resilience in the face of abandonment.

The Bureaucratic Maze: Salwa’s Story

Salwa, a former lawyer from Sudan and now a human rights researcher based in Cairo, first entered Egypt on a tourist visa, around four months before the outbreak of the war. When the war started, her visa expired, and she managed to renew it, still on a tourist basis. 

Later, she traveled legally to Kenya to participate in a training program focused on documenting human rights violations during the conflict in Sudan. However, upon trying to return to Egypt via Nairobi airport, she was told by airline staff that a new Egyptian directive had been issued, banning the entry of Sudanese nationals, even those holding valid residence permits.

Despite having all required documents, including a valid Egyptian residency, a work letter confirming her job in Cairo, and evidence of her temporary travel for training, she was denied boarding. A representative from the Egyptian side even contacted Cairo’s passport authorities to confirm her situation—but permission was still refused. As a result, she missed her flight and was forced to remain in Kenya.

Eventually, with no other options, she returned briefly to Sudan, and later re-entered Egypt through irregular means—the only route available to her, despite having all valid paperwork.

Once back in Cairo, Salwa applied for asylum at UNHCR and received a yellow card. She also obtained a six-month refugee residence permit from the Egyptian authorities, which has since expired. Now, the renewal appointment she was given is set three years from the expiry date, and her UNHCR card is not scheduled for renewal until next year.

I work day and night, but the pay is too low. I often can’t afford rent or medicine. Sometimes, people don’t even pay me at all.

As a result, despite all her efforts to stay legally, the bureaucratic delays and shifting regulations have left her living in Egypt in a legally uncertain—and now technically irregular—status. This has come at a high financial and psychological cost, despite her ongoing attempts to comply with the system.

Salwa volunteers with local rights groups, tutors refugee children, and cleans homes to survive. But even juggling three jobs isn’t enough to secure a decent life.

“I work day and night, but the pay is too low. I often can’t afford rent or medicine. Sometimes, people don’t even pay me at all,” she explains.

She adds that informal work often means accepting exploitative conditions without complaint, out of fear of losing even the little she has.
“There’s no protection. No contract. If you ask for your rights, you lose the job”.

Economic pressure is not her only challenge. Salwa has faced several incidents of verbal and physical harassment—both as a woman and as a refugee. She recounts being insulted on public transport and threatened in the street.

One incident remains particularly painful:

“My elderly father was pushed by a landlord during a dispute over unpaid rent. I was there. I tried to stop it, but the landlord just shouted at both of us and slammed the door”.

The trauma of that day still weighs heavily on her.

“We escaped threats in Sudan only to be treated with disdain here. My father was humiliated in front of me, and I couldn’t protect him. That moment broke something in me”.

I don’t want to just wait. I want to give women something they can use—skills, community, a sense that we still matter.

Evenings are spent navigating embassy websites, applying for remote grants, and attending online trainings. These moments of planning are not merely survival—they are Salwa’s form of resistance.

Despite the silence   of waiting, she founded a local skills initiative in Zeitoun to train other displaced women in basic crafts and community self-reliance.

“I don’t want to just wait. I want to give women something they can use—skills, community, a sense that we still matter”.

The Dangerous Crossing: Jasmeh’s Story

Jasmeh, a trauma counselor and feminist organizer, once ran a safe house for women in conflict zones. In August 2023, after publicizing the killing of several relatives by armed actors, she fled with her husband, four children, and sister toward the Ethiopian border—only to be blocked for lack of visas.

With no other path, they turned west, crossing through Argeen into Egypt. The route was brutal.
“The moment we left our home, and the moment we were detained… I will never forget them,” she recalls.
“I saw bodies floating. And now I live in another kind of prison”.

Jasmeh was detained, beaten, and humiliated along the journey. Her husband was also arrested. They entered Egypt battered—emotionally and physically—and have struggled to rebuild ever since.

I face racism every single day. Strangers insult me in the street. They call me names, mock my skin color, my accent. Sometimes I walk with my head down just to avoid being noticed.

But the trauma did not end at the border. Life in Cairo has presented new layers of violence.

“I face racism every single day,” she says. “Strangers insult me in the street. They call me names, mock my skin color, my accent. Sometimes I walk with my head down just to avoid being noticed”.

The verbal abuse isn’t occasional—it’s constant.

“There are days I come home and cry for hours. Not because of one specific insult, but because it never stops”.

The weight of daily humiliation is compounded by her inability to access safe or stable housing, mental healthcare, or employment.

“There’s no one to listen. I cry often. I feel sick and exhausted. It’s not just fear—it’s being invisible”.

Her legal status remains unresolved. Her temporary protection expires soon, and her residency renewal is delayed until 2027—leaving her in limbo, again.

Stolen Time: The Paperwork Trap

Beyond war and exile, there is a slower, quieter violence: the violence of waiting.

Appointments scheduled years in the future. Residency cards that cost money and expire before they are printed. Files that sit unopened on desks. Systems that assume survival is enough.

Both Salwa and Jasmeh speak about the absurd delays they endure. Salwa received a UNHCR renewal appointment nearly two years after her initial registration, with no updates in between. Jasmeh was told that her Egyptian residency renewal through the passport office would not be processed before 2027—four years of uncertainty and fear.

In the meantime, they live under constant threat of arrest or deportation simply for existing without valid papers.

Salwa spends her days refreshing embassy portals. Jasmeh no longer dares to leave her neighborhood.

“I’m a mother of four, and I can’t move freely. I feel stuck, afraid of being taken at any moment.”

The cost is not just logistical.

These are years lost—of education, safety, motherhood, and peace.

Dreams are postponed until they collapse.

“It’s not just about papers,” says Jasmeh. “It’s about the life we’re not allowed to live.”

From Isolation to Mutual Support

In the waiting halls of refugee offices and aid centers, Salwa and Jasmeh met—first as two women with similar stories, now as collaborators. Together, they co-founded a grassroots women-led support network in Zeitoun.

It offers peer psychological support, basic legal information, community workshops, and a shared space for mothers to breathe. What began as mutual survival has become mutual care.

“We believe in what we do,” says Jasmeh. “Helping others, even when we have nothing, is what gives our lives meaning.”

Their friendship became a form of resistance—quiet, continuous, and deeply human.

Shared Dream: Dignity, Not Escape

For both women, the dream of reaching Europe is not about comfort—it is about a chance. A chance to access education and healthcare. To work legally and live safely. To raise their children without fear. A chance to stop surviving and start living fully—with dignity, purpose, and hope.

Salwa dreams of enrolling in graduate studies in international law, contributing to refugee policy from a place of knowledge and lived experience. Jasmeh hopes to gain certification in trauma recovery and open a healing center for displaced women. They envision futures where they are not just safe, but seen—where they contribute meaningfully to society, whether in Europe or back home in a peaceful Sudan.
Their journey is not only about personal liberation—it is a chance for any host country to embrace the richness of cultural diversity and the strength of lived resilience. Migrants like them bring with them not only pain, but skill, insight, and perspective.

I’m someone who is still building a life—and still dreaming of a peaceful life for myself and my family, or even just a life at all—and of a peaceful Sudan.

They carry stories, language, and solutions. Their presence is a growth opportunity for any society willing to see them as more than refugees—but as future educators, healers, organizers, and neighbors.

“We don’t ask for pity. We ask for recognition,” says Salwa.

“I’m someone who is still building a life—and still dreaming of a peaceful life for myself and my family, or even just a life at all—and of a peaceful Sudan,” says Jasmeh.

In a media landscape focused on exceptional refugee success stories, theirs is a quieter, more common truth. It is not a story of grand victory or dramatic rescue. It is a story of persistence in the face of erasure.

Their lives are not defined by displacement alone. They are not statistics. They are not tragedies.

They are women who resisted being silenced. Women who crossed borders and systems and grief—and still wake up to try again. Their stories are not only about suffering, but about courage. Not just about what was lost, but what is still being built.

Survival is resistance. Community is resilience.

And behind every stalled application lies not just a future paused, but a voice that refuses to disappear.