In 2016 we paid six visits to the prestine Siwa oasis in Egypt’s Western desert despite negative Western travel advisories. Two of our interns interned in Siwa and were excited about their most wonderful experiences.  Businessman Dr. Mounir Neamatalla took in October and December 2016 tens of ambassadors and senior diplomats to Siwa for themselves. Yet, Western travel advisories change only slowly.

Researcher Jayson Casper joined us on one of our visits and wrote a report with the title “the insanity of a travel ban to Siwa.” He spoke with scores of local people about their feelings of injustice. Read what they said here.

Most Western travel advisories advice not to travel to Siwa oasis, an oasis of peace and tranquility 300 km south of Marsa Matrouh on the Mediterranean. The Western travel advisories are diagonally the opposite of Egypt’s Tourism police who accompanied our group of 29 people between October 10-14 to Siwa. This included Dutch, American, British, German, Chinese and Egyptian participants. In November and December I was again in Siwa and experienced the same peace and tranquility as during earlier visits. In December Dr. Mounir Neamatalla hosted again a group of diplomats in his exclusive Adrere Amellal (meaning White Mountain in Siwi, the local language), the same eco-lodge where earlier HRH Prince Charles and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla Parker Bowles, stayed. Dr. Mounir Neamatalla hopes these visits will help to spread the word that Siwa is safe.

Remarkably European Embassies are not giving a united security advice on locations to visit. “Each Embassy makes its own consideration on the basis of their own information and interests. As a consequence of different incidents in the Western desert we advice not to travel in that area. It is for the time being not expected that the advisory for Siwa will be eased soon. A negative (red) advice affects the insurance of travelers.” (translation of Dutch email Dutch Embassy in Cairo, October 8, 2016).

What these incidents are is not explained. Certain is that since the 2011 revolution no single incident has happened in Siwa. The terrible army mistake that left 8 Mexican tourists dead in September 2015, was 1000 km away from Siwa, a Siwa official told us. “It was clearly a mistake,” Dr. Mounir Neamatalla says, “but that does not mean that this area is dangerous.”

The Dutch travel advisory is in particularly remarkable because it makes Siwa a red dot in an orange area, meaning Siwa is more dangerous than the surrounding desert while most other embassies agree that desert safaris carry more risks then being in the oasis. See in particular the Austrian travel advisory that allows visits to Siwa but warns for outings in the surrounding desert which makes more sense.

There are several non-Egyptians permanently living in Siwa who testify from personal experiences that Siwa is an absolutely safe place to live. Read about their experiences here. The Egyptian newspaper Masr El-Yom documented this in a film. See this here. Two of our interns spent in 2016 a good time here and documented this for Arab-West Report. German intern Diana Michaelis wrote about Unforgettable Experiences in Siwa – the Prestine Sun Oasis and Egyptian intern Rodyna Reda wrote in Amazing Life in Siwa about how this experience totally changed her life.

The negative travel advisories result in Western insurance companies not offering insurances to Western visitors to Siwa which has ended organized groups coming to Siwa.  A Dutch university wrote CAWU that they cannot send interns to Siwa as long as this negative travel advisory is in force.  The negative travel advisories are crippling for Siwa’s tourism industry.

The Center for Arab-West Understanding therefore decided to publicly challenge the Western travel advisories by allowing two of their student interns, one German and one Egyptian, to intern in Siwa. Both very much enjoyed their Siwan experiences. Diana Michaelis, German, studies at Vienna University where her professor, Prof. Dr. Wolfram Reiss, accepted her stay in Siwa as part of the official university internship.

The Center and Dr. Mounir Neamatallah are not alone in rejecting Western travel advisories. A group of Anglican Bishops publicly defied the travel advisory of the British Embassy by visiting important Egyptian tourist destinations. 

Of course anyone should be advised not to take unnecessary risks in traveling but the Center is deeply convinced that the negative travel advice to Siwa is not warranted and that warnings for travel to Egypt in general are much too harsh.  The Center hopes Western Embassies will reconsider their travel advisories in 2017 and include Siwa as safe travel destination.

Wishing you a blessed 2017!

December 30, 2016

Cornelis Hulsman,

Deputy Chairman Center for Arab-West Understanding