— The EU chief and five European leaders visited cash-strapped Egypt on Sunday to announce a 7.4-billion-euro financial package focussed on boosting energy trade and stemming irregular migrant flows to the 27-member bloc.
Egypt, mired in a painful economic crisis, borders war-battered Libya and the centres of two ongoing conflicts — the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and Sudan’s war between the regular armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The EU official said the deal includes steps to cooperate on “security, counter-terrorism cooperation and protection of borders, in particular the southern one” with Sudan.
The EU’s border agency Frontex last year recorded nearly 158,000 migrant arrivals in Europe via the dangerous sea route, up by 50 percent on the previous year.