by Mahmoud Fouly

CAIRO, June 20 (Xinhua) -- A group of African refugees and expatriates from Sudan, South Sudan, and other nations gathered at a sports academy in Cairo for a spirited football match. They were cheered on by a supportive crowd, finding solace and security in Egypt after escaping conflicts in their homelands.

Amidst the warmth and hospitality extended by Egyptians, they still longed for peace and the chance to return home, sentiments shared on World Refugee Day, observed annually on June 20.

Kamal Mahmoud, a Sudanese residing in Cairo and a coach at the academy, found himself stranded in Egypt when conflict erupted in Sudan last April.

Mahmoud and his family used to frequent neighboring Egypt before the conflict but never anticipated having to stay for an extended period.

His family now relied on his coaching income, his wife's tutoring fees, and sporadic aid from overseas friends.

"I hope that peace will prevail all over the world, not just in Sudan, but also in Palestine and elsewhere too," said Mahmoud.

World Refugee Day is marked by the United Nations on June 20 every year "to honor refugees around the globe." This year's campaign focuses on solidarity with refugees.

Since the ongoing deadly Israeli onslaught on the Palestinian Gaza Strip that started in early October last year, Egypt has received tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians seeking safety.

Among them was Ahmed Khamis Hasaballah, a 30-year-old photojournalist who fled Gaza two months ago because of the Israeli attacks.

"Anywhere in Gaza, at any moment, at any second, we journalists could be the news due to being directly targeted by Israeli troops," the Gazan man told Xinhua, adding that nearly 140 journalists were killed and many others wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza, citing Palestinian tallies.

Hasaballah's family had eight members before his father was killed in the current Israeli war on Gaza. Now that he is in Egypt, his mother and siblings are still in Gaza.

"I am here now, but my mind is in Gaza because I have not seen my family for eight months now, and I do not know anything about them," the Palestinian photojournalist told Xinhua.

He praised the Egyptian people for embracing the Palestinians and treating them "like family," hoping the war would stop and he could reunite with his family in Gaza.

"We ask the whole world today as refugees that the fierce war on Gaza be stopped, and we wish for all refugees to return to their lands," Hasaballah said.

With a population of over 106 million people, Egypt currently hosts nearly 9 million foreign residents from over 130 countries, including hundreds of thousands of refugees, mostly from Sudan, Syria, and Palestine, according to the Egyptian government.

Meanwhile, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said in a recent report that Egypt is now home to more than 600,000 registered refugees and asylum-seekers from 62 nationalities.

Some Egyptian experts believe that although refugees are welcomed in Egypt, their presence needs to be regulated. Egypt should receive funding from the UN to cover the costs of hosting and providing services for them, as the country is already suffering from economic pressures.

"Refugees are our guests, and we will not treat them unfairly or reject them, but their conditions must be regulated, and the process must be organized because we also have our problems," said Sawsan Fayed, an Egyptian sociologist and professor of political psychology at Egypt's National Center for Social and Criminological Research.

"Refugees are the responsibility of the regimes that have failed to stabilize their countries," she told Xinhua, blaming the United States for exercising "international bullying" regarding the implementation or non-implementation of UN pro-peace resolutions. Enditem

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