When violent unrest erupted in Libya recently, Ahmed al-Agouz, 25, was doing casual work in the Libyan city of Sabha. Realizing he had to flee, he managed to reach the Tunisian border, where he eventually boarded a plane to Cairo. “Coming back to Egypt was a dream, given the horrific things I saw on the road,” he told IRIN. “I can only describe the experience as a sickening thriller.”
But returning to his home village in the Egyptian Nile Delta Governorate of Sharqia, north of Cairo, has made one thing abundantly clear to al-Agouz and tens of thousands of other returnees: There simply are no jobs back home.
According to Abdurrahman Kheir, an expert with the Egyptian Labour Union, the returnees will find it extremely difficult to get jobs. “This means they will descend into poverty and unemployment... The economy will fail to offer these people jobs, at least in the near future.”
Since the 18-day protest which forced President Hosni Mubarak out of office on 11 February, hundreds of thousands of workers, especially in the tourism and construction sectors, have yet to resume work.
The protests in Libya, which started on 14 February, and subsequent widespread violence and fighting, have led hundreds of thousands of migrant workers - including over 68,000 Egyptians, according to the UN Refugee Agency - to flee the country.
“I didn’t even manage to bring back all the clothes I had in the wardrobe with me,” he said. “I know it’s impossible to find a job here. My neighbours are all unemployed.”
A few days ago, 27-year-old carpenter Mohamed Abdel Khaliq committed suicide at his home in the Nile Delta Governorate of Monofiya, after thugs apparently robbed him of his belongings on his way back home.
Aliaa al-Mahdy, a leading economist at Cairo University, told IRIN the current Egyptian government needed to tackle the budget deficit and encourage job creation through small businesses. “The government can encourage these projects by just telling small investors they’ll have tax exemptions,” he said. “The government can offer many other incentives to lure investors back.”
Meanwhile, 28-year-old returnee Mohamed Ahmed Bassiouny, who worked as a house painter in Libya, hopes the government will do something. When he came back he discovered the construction sector had ground to a halt. Now he fears for the future of his wife and three children. “There are no new buildings, and few people are ready to spend the little money they have on getting their apartments painted,” Bassiouny said. “Where will I work then?”
"We may be facing a historic human tragedy," Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), said Tuesday as she toured a border crossing between Tunisia and Libya that has been swamped with 15,000 refugees a day. Other UN agencies and international groups say Libya may already be on the brink of a catastrophe.
The World Health Organization says the health situation inside the country is "precarious;" aid agencies warn its food supply chain is "at risk of collapsing;" and Britain's Save the Children Fund says up to one million children trapped in the capital Tripoli and western Libya are in danger of becoming war victims.
Things could get worse if Col. Gaddafi's troops try to cut off food to opposition-held cities and towns. They have already attempted to bomb some of the huge pipelines that carry water to Libya's main cities from aquifers buried deep beneath the Sahara Desert, hundreds of kilometres south of the populated Mediterranean coast.
The WFP was rushing assessment teams to Benghazi in opposition-controlled eastern Libya Wednesday to determine if the port can be used for emergency food deliveries.
The Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Charlottetown also set sail from Halifax on a six-day voyage to join a U.S.-led naval task force off the coast, where it will help in any humanitarian mission.
Europe is watching the unfolding tragedy with consternation, fearing a massive regional displacement could trigger a tidal wave of illegal migration from North Africa.
The tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, just 160 km off the coast of Tunisia, has already been swamped with more than 6,000 would-be migrants seeking resettlement in Europe.
Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission President, announced a tripling of the European Union's humanitarian aid, to ease the crisis.
The turmoil, which started in the east about 10 days ago and has now spread to other parts of Libya, has disrupted supplies in the desert, oil-producing nation which depends on imports to cover domestic food demand.
In Tripoli's working class Fashloom neighbourhood, locals said flour, vegetables and fuel prices had risen by at least 20 percent in their neighbourhood in the last 10 days.
People formed long lines outside bakeries, limited to selling between five and 20 loaves of bread per customer, depending on the area. One man in Fashloom said an average extended household in Tripoli consumed about 40 loaves a day.
"There isn't enough food," said Basim, 25, a bank employee, adding that many workers in the public sector had yet to receive salaries for February. "It's the end of the month, my money is running out. I don't know what I will do."
Crowds of people also massed outside state banks, which have started distributing handouts of about $400 per family in an effort by Gaddafi's government to drum up support.
Inside one bank, there were frantic scenes as chain-smoking employees worked through people's papers and counted out wads of cash. One man in the crowd shouted angrily and rattled metal gates outside the bank teller's window.
"It's a difficult situation. Food in many countries in getting more expensive. In Libya, rising prices suddenly changed the situation," said Khaled Amir, 30, a bank manager. "People are nervous."
While a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical team inside Libya attempts to reach health facilities trying to cope with high numbers of injured people, additional MSF teams with medical supplies, including necessary surgical materials, remain blocked from entering the country.
Since the onset of violent clashes in Libya on February 17, MSF has been trying to position emergency personnel and supplies into the country by any means possible, including by land and air. Despite the urgent need for medical assistance in Libya, an MSF team carrying medical supplies, including kits for treating war-related injuries, has been blocked for two days at the Tunisian border. Another MSF team had reached Tripoli by airplane but was denied entry to the country and had to turn back.
"All information we receive points towards a critical situation in terms of medical care for the injured," said Arjan Hehenkamp, MSF’s director of operations. "We need to be working alongside Libyan health professionals to care for people who have been caught in the violent clashes over recent days. It is unacceptable that medical staff and supplies are kept away from people who need them."
The six-person MSF team that managed to cross from Egypt into Libya yesterday, with a truckload of medical supplies, is attempting to reach areas where health facilities have reported many wounded people and severe supply shortages, including the city of Benghazi, where the team arrived today. Travel by road to the capital, Tripoli, where medical needs are estimated to be immense, is said to be almost impossible for now due to insecurity.
As a medical humanitarian organization, MSF stresses that the integrity of medical structures, patients and medical staff need to be respected.
"Absolute priority must now be given to doctors and medical supplies, in order to provide urgently needed medical care and help to existing health facilities struggling to cope with the influx of wounded people," said Hehenkamp.
MSF continues to work on sending supplies and staff to Libya. A second truck with medical supplies, including surgical materials, is on its way to the Egyptian-Libyan border.
