Day Eight: Marsa Matrouh, Egypt

Yesterday, we were in Cairo for a series of meetings with government and non-government officials. It very quickly became clear that what we will see tomorrow at the Salum border crossing will be very different from what we saw at the Shousha transit camp we visited last week in Tunisia.

The Tunisian response to the tens of thousands of people fleeing across its border with Libya has been impressive. The local community has been supplying food to those in the camp. And Tunisia’s government has allowed international aid organizations to set-up an efficient operation designed to help accommodate and repatriate the third-country nationals who make up the majority of the camp’s inhabitants.

But this same welcome does not await those who are fleeing into Egypt on Libya’s eastern border. We are told that the Egyptian government does not want a camp constructed on the border, or anything that smacks of permanence. Thus there are no tents, and barely any shelter for those who have crossed over from Libya.

At the moment, there are only a few thousand third-country nationals camped out on the border crossing at Salum. But who knows when or if more may be coming?

I was cautiously optimistic about Gaddafi’s declaration of a ceasefire on Friday. Clearly that was misplaced, given his military operations of the weekend. But for the time being at least, it appears that airstrikes by the international coalition have stopped Gaddafi’s forces from advancing further into the east.

Let’s hope that trend continues. Because if the situation in eastern Libya does deteriorate again, a new outflow of people fleeing over the border into Egypt seems guaranteed. If that happens, surely the military in control of the border will consider a more humane way of accommodating those seeking shelter from Libya’s violence.

Dara McLeod is the media relations manager of Refugees International.