Egypt: Thousands Evicted Amid Sinai Demolitions

(Beirut, September 22, 2015) – The Egyptian military’s mass home demolitions and forced eviction of about 3,200 families in the Sinai Peninsula over the past two years violated international law, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 84-page report, “Look for Another Homeland,” documents the government’s failure to provide adequately for residents during and after the evictions in North Sinai. Since July 2013, ostensibly to eliminate the threat of smuggling tunnels, the military has arbitrarily razed thousands of homes in a once-populated buffer zone on the border with the Gaza Strip, destroying entire neighborhoods and hundreds of hectares of farmland.