A meaningful share of the war's burden has been carried by Sudan's neighbors. Egypt hosts the largest total Sudanese population of any country, around 1.5 million people, though more of the post-April 2023 refugees are in Chad. What interests me most about Egypt now is that the flow has gone bidirectional. Sudanese are still arriving, but Sudanese are also starting to head back (and many already have).

Most returns are heading to SAF-held central Sudan, especially to Khartoum, and most of those coming back from Egypt are returning to Khartoum specifically. The Sudanese population in Chad came overwhelmingly from Darfur, which RSF still holds, so the return flow from there is muted. The IOM puts cumulative returns from Egypt and South Sudan at around 320,000 since the start of 2025, and expects over two million more to return to Khartoum alone in 2026. Neither figure includes Chad. What I particularly want to read from this question is whether returns to Khartoum have now grown large enough to depress the count of registered Sudanese in Egypt, or whether arrivals still outpace returns.

A new question on Metaculus:

How many Sudanese refugees and asylum-seekers will be registered with UNHCR in Egypt as of 31 August 2026?

The available numeric inputs are between 750,000 and 950,000 people (both bounds open).

Closing date: 31 August 2026

Background: As of 30 April 2026, there were 849,364 Sudanese refugees and asylum-seekers registered with UNHCR in Egypt. Egypt's government places the total Sudanese population in the country at around 1.5 million, with a registration backlog of roughly 210,000 people awaiting their first appointment. Registration has slowed sharply: from March to December 2025 it ran around 18,000 a month, and from December to April it has run around 3,800. Two pressures are pulling on the count in opposite directions. The first is the Egyptian crackdown, which intensified in early 2026 and saw between three and ten thousand Sudanese arrested in the first two months of the year. The crackdown deters new registrations and pushes some registered Sudanese underground, but it also drives previously-unregistered Sudanese to seek UNHCR documentation as a hedge against detention. The second is return. Egypt and Sudan are operating a bilateral "voluntary" return scheme, with 207 returns in December and 371 in January, rising. The 31 August snapshot also sits inside a natural decision window for the more than 135,000 school-aged Sudanese children in Egypt: the Egyptian academic year begins around 20 September and the Sudanese school year resumes in SAF-held areas a few weeks earlier, so families are choosing whether to re-enroll in Egypt for another year or attempt return before September.

Resolution criteria: This question resolves to the headline figure for "Sudanese refugees and asylum-seekers registered with UNHCR in Egypt" published in the UNHCR Egypt Fact Sheet covering the 31 August 2026 stock. If that fact sheet has not been published by 15 September 2026, resolution falls back to the Operational Data Portal monthly population document explicitly dated 31 August 2026. The figure must be the registered Sudanese count, not a total population estimate or any combined Sudanese-and-other-nationality total. Pending registrations and registration appointments are excluded. If neither source is available by 15 September 2026, the question annuls.

I would appreciate your feedback and your forecasts.

Notes:

  1. Previous questions: (1) How many internally displaced people will Sudan have on January 31, 2026? (2) Will SAF and RSF delegations both physically attend the same peace negotiation venue before December 31, 2025? (3) How many cumulative suspected cholera cases will be reported in the next WHO Sudan Health Cluster bulletin? (4) Will Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2026? (5) Will Burhan and Hemedti be publicly confirmed to have met in person in 2026? (6) Will any peer-reviewed paper or major-organization publication issued in 2026 estimate Sudan-war excess mortality above 200,000? (7) Will the Rapid Support Forces capture El Obeid by each of three dry-season dates?