SINAI: Egypt has announced plans for a $15.5 billion urban development project in the Sinai peninsula, the vast desert area plagued by anti-government sentiment and a burgeoning insurgency.
President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi unveiled the scheme for the beleaguered region while embarking on the his campaign for re-election.
Dressed in military uniform, he described the project, which includes 14 new schools and 4,572 residential units, as an attempt to combat terrorism by improving the lives of Sinai’s impoverished residents.
“We want to change what has happened to Sinai in the coming four years,” El-Sisi said on Sunday. “This is a national appeal. I am asking for God’s support and for the support of all honorable Egyptians.”
Stretching between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, Sinai is a vast area of mountains, deserts and isolated towns that is home to an estimated 1.4 million people.
Long plagued by insecurity, it has grown increasingly unstable since a 2013 military coup brought El-Sisi to power in place of the democratically elected government of Muhammad Mursi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sisi was subsequently elected in 2014, when he won almost 97 percent of the controversial vote.
A local affiliate of Daesh has emerged in the region, launching attacks against government and civilian targets amid air strikes that The New York Times reported have been carried out by both Egypt and Israel.
In October 2015, Daesh claimed responsibility for the bombing of a Russian airliner over the peninsula, which killed 224 people. More recently, on Nov. 24, 2017, the group was blamed for an attack in which gunmen stormed a Sufi mosque in the town of Bir Al-Abed, killing more than 300 people.
Mustafa Madbouli, Egypt’s minister of housing, utilities and urban development, told state-run television the government hopes to create 1.2 million new jobs in Sinai by 2027 — a program of investment that it says will help increase the local population to 3.5 million.
The development project includes 4,572 new residential units for the town of Ras Sedr and the city of Abu Zenima, as well as a new 2,828-acre housing scheme in Ismailia. The unveiling of the plans came on the second day of campaigning in the country’s presidential election, with polling due to take place from March 26 to 28.
El-Sisi is widely expected to win the vote following a sustained crackdown against his political opponents. US-based Human Rights Watch said yesterday the government’s “heavy-handed repression” meant the “minimum requirements for free and fair elections” would not be met.