Egypt

The 21 billionaires in the Middle East and North Africa saw their wealth increase by nearly $10 billion since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, while 45 million more people in the region could be pushed to poverty as a result of the pandemic, a new Oxfam report has revealed.

Egypt’s allies should halt support to Egyptian security forces until Egypt takes measurable steps to end the abuses and hold accountable those responsible, say human rights groups.

Governments across the Middle East and North Africa crushed protests with ruthless force during 2019, said Amnesty International as it published its annual human rights report on the region.

Research by the Jubilee Debt Campaign indicates a major breach by the IMF of its own policies, with $93 billion of lending to highly indebted countries without any debt restructurings.