Dispatch #39
Read about how Egypt’s border hides an underworld of trafficking and abuse, a Chechen leader’s banknote power play in Russia, and the women-led movement reshaping Taiwan’s democratic future
Hello and welcome to Translator’s weekly Dispatch, where we bring you summaries of compelling stories written beyond the Anglosphere.
This week, from Egypt, an expansive cross-border investigation traces the perilous journeys of Sudanese refugees fleeing war and uncovers how gangs, smugglers and systemic neglect have turned the desert border into an economy of exploitation and despair.
From Russia, a report by Artem Radygin for Radio Svoboda reveals how public voting on the design of a new banknote descended into a face-off between Chechnya’s longtime political leader, pro-war bloggers and Russian nationalists.
From Taiwan, a powerful article traces how women – from homemakers to activists – are mobilising to protect the island’s democracy and redefining the meaning of civic power.
Finally, you can read more of the world beyond English in Translator Issue #2, out on 20 November and available to pre-order here. Expect more pages, more Street Talks, more translated journalism, reportage and essays, from Palestine, Japan, Brazil, Belgium and beyond.
And if you’re in London, stay tuned: tickets for our Issue #2 launch event on 19 November will be released very soon…
P.S.: In the meantime, tell us what you like and dislike, themes you’d like to see explored from the perspective of different linguistic media landscapes. And, as ever, feel free to recommend specific pieces we should summarise for our Dispatches, or translate in full for the magazine.
Here’s what we’re looking for and how to let us know.
Sudanese refugees and the Egyptian border’s economy of exploitation
An expansive cross-border investigation exposes the brutality faced by refugees fleeing Sudan’s war and the impunity that sustains it
In a devastating and meticulously reported investigation, ARIJ’s Salma Abdel Aziz and Ehab Zeidan uncover a hidden humanitarian catastrophe unfolding on Egypt’s southern border. Through interviews with survivors, smugglers and activists, a survey of 324 Sudanese refugees, and interactive data visualisations, the reporters trace the harrowing journeys of those fleeing Sudan’s civil war, only to fall into the hands of traffickers and corrupt officials.
The piece opens with the testimony of Saeed, a 22-year-old Sudanese student whose dream of safety in Egypt ended in violent rape. He had fled Atbara, in northern Sudan, when the war halted his university studies. Smuggled across the desert in January 2024, he was intercepted near the Al-Kasarat quarries, considered an unpoliced no-man’s-land just outside Aswan. After refusing to pay an extra “fee” to one of the drivers, Saeed was beaten, raped and left half-naked in the sand. A later medical report confirmed internal injuries requiring surgery he could not afford.
He is one of thousands whose bodies and futures are held hostage in this desolate stretch of desert, a shadow corridor of violence where organised gangs operate freely beyond the reach of Egyptian law enforcement.
The investigation documents a spectrum of abuses: sexual assault, robbery, kidnapping and extortion. Survivors describe masked men ambushing vans, raping women and children at gunpoint, and demanding ransoms for release. One case, that of Suha, a widow travelling with her two children, encapsulates the horror. She was ambushed by eight men, stripped and assaulted while her seven-year-old son begged for mercy. Her story ends not in relief but in further despair: working in a Sudanese restaurant in Aswan for the equivalent of $2 a day, unable to pay for her children’s schooling.
A survey of Sudanese refugees conducted by the reporting team found that four per cent of women had been raped, 10 per cent sexually harassed, 33 per cent robbed, and eight per cent kidnapped for ransom. The investigation notes that most victims are too afraid to report crimes, fearing deportation under Egypt’s restrictive asylum system.
Under Egyptian law, refugees who enter the country irregularly have no legal protection until registered with the UNHCR, a process that can take up to a year and requires traveling 1,000 kilometres to Cairo. The article’s interactive map, which traces four smuggling routes from Sudan into Aswan, illustrates the vast distances, dangers and institutional void that leave refugees exposed to systemic abuse.
Experts interviewed in the piece, including lawyers and human rights activists, argue that Egypt’s 2024 asylum law effectively criminalises refugees. It punishes irregular entry rather than protecting those fleeing conflict, contradicting Egypt’s obligations under the 1951 Geneva Convention and the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention, both of which guarantee the right to seek asylum without penalty.
The reporters also expose how Egypt’s visa restrictions on Sudanese nationals, imposed just weeks after the outbreak of the war in April 2023, have driven a booming underground economy of smuggling and exploitation. Smugglers charge between $40 and $60 per person to cross the desert in convoys of vehicles that evade police checkpoints using reconnaissance cars and hideouts known as storage points. Gangs intercept these routes with near impunity.
When victims seek redress, they face a bureaucratic maze and institutional neglect. The UNHCR, hamstrung by a severe global funding shortfall, a $98 million gap in Egypt alone, has suspended most medical and cash assistance, closed regional offices, and limited refugee registration to Cairo. Saeed and Suha both reached out to the agency for help; Saeed received only a slip of paper with a list of NGOs, while Suha was given a distant appointment nearly a year later.
The UNHCR’s official response, published in full within the report, acknowledges these failures but places responsibility on the Egyptian state. It cites “an overwhelming influx of more than 1.5 million Sudanese” and confirms that reduced staff and resources have “forced the suspension of field missions” and “delayed registration”. Egypt, it notes, has refused to authorise a UNHCR presence at the border.
Meanwhile, Egyptian authorities continue to frame refugee entry as a security issue rather than a humanitarian one. Law enforcement rarely investigates abuses against Sudanese refugees, and new asylum legislation allows for deportation or imprisonment for irregular entry.
In its conclusion, the investigation situates these personal tragedies within a wider economy of silence and complicity. Egypt’s booming agricultural and construction sectors rely heavily on migrant labour, while refugees remain officially invisible. Their suffering becomes another uncounted cost of the war in Sudan and the tightening of borders across the region.
At once expansive in scope and intimate in detail, this investigation stands out for its interactive documentation of survivor testimonies, its forensic reconstruction of smuggling routes, and its unflinching portrayal of violence that thrives in the space between borders and bureaucracy.
Original article ‘المصيدة البشرية’ by Salma Abdel Aziz and Ehab Zeidan published in Arabic by ARIJ in partnership with Al-Muhajiron on 31 August 2025.
It is available here.
ARIJ is a leading independent investigative network in the Middle East that supports cross-border journalism exposing corruption, human rights abuses and systemic injustice across the Arab region.
Summary by ZN
Kadyrov’s battle for Russia’s 500-Ruble note
As Russia redesigns its currency, Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov wages a symbolic war for visibility
When the independent Russian outlet Radio Svoboda published journalist Artem Radygin’s report on the Russian Central Bank’s search for a picture to go on its new 500-Ruble note, what emerged was more than a story about the aesthetics currency design.
It was a story about power, the politics of image in contemporary Russia, and the cracks in the façade of unity between the Kremlin, popular Russian nationalism (encouraged and instrumentalised by the Kremlin in the context of its war of aggression in Ukraine, but whose online voices can sometimes be stern critics of how the war has been run), and Chechnya’s autocratic leader Ramzan Kadyrov (a declarative ultraloyalist to Vladimir Putin who, at the same time, runs Chechnya as his private fiefdom).
[There’s a long story here: in the 1990s and 2000s Russia fought a brutal series of wars in Chechnya to prevent it from seceding from the Russian Federation; these wars were intimately intertwined with the rise of Putin to power, and fundamental to the position of Kadyrov, with a great deal of murkiness in between.]
On 1 October 2025, the Central Bank of Russia launched an online vote to select the landmarks to appear on its new banknote, inviting the public to choose symbols representing the North Caucasus Federal District (of which Chechnya is one part). Among the options on offer were Mount Elbrus (the highest mountain in the Caucasus range), Derbent Fortress and Grozny City, a shimmering skyscraper complex built by Kadyrov as a monument to his rule and “the rebirth of Chechnya”.
Three days later, Kadyrov took to Telegram to mobilise votes for Grozny City, calling it a “symbol of victory over international terrorism” and offering iPhone 17s as inducements for people to vote (multiple times) in support of his preference. His campaign ignited an online firestorm. Russian nationalist pro-war bloggers accused him of manipulating votes, or even that trying to place Grozny City on the 500-ruble note amounted to “anti-Russian sabotage”. Even members of parliament joined the backlash, promoting rival symbols and accusing the Chechen leader of overreach.
By 10 October, the Central Bank abruptly cancelled the vote, citing “technical manipulation”. But as Radygin reports, this was no simple case of ballot tampering. It revealed how deeply Kadyrov’s cult of personality has entangled itself with the Russian state’s symbolic order.
For Kadyrov, glitzy Grozny City represents not just reconstruction, but personal vindication and the glowing proof of his transformation from warlord to state loyalist. Yet as Chechen human rights activist Musa Lomaev tells Radio Svoboda, this triumphal image conceals a harsher reality. Ordinary Chechens don’t see freedom in Grozny City and still live with fear, kidnapping and repression.
Radygin’s piece situates this vanity struggle within Russia’s broader authoritarian drift. As Kirill Martynov, editor-in-chief of the exiled Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe, observes, displaying Kadyrov’s power on a Russian banknote would be entirely fitting for today’s war-torn, repressive Russia. He further notes that methods once considered particular to Chechnya such as intimidation, enforced loyalty, the fusion of religion and power, are now common across the Russian Federation. Has Chechnya been Russified, or has Russia rather taken on the increasingly overt characteristics of Chechnya’s political economy?
The controversy has also unfolded amid rumours of Kadyrov’s ill health and waning political influence. His public feud with General Vladimir Shamanov, who condemned Chechnya’s move to rename Russian-settled villages, has further exposed the tensions within the Kremlin’s hierarchy in relationship to Chechnya. Kadyrov’s response – calling Shamanov a “hyena”, for example, and threatening lawsuits – seem less like strength than desperation. As Martynov suggests, Kadyrov’s fixation on the banknote is, ultimately, a struggle for relevance.
The battle over the banknote can be seen as a mirror of Russia’s political decay and an authoritarian regime’s search to remain visible.
Original article ‘500 извинений’ by Artem Radygin was published in Russian by Radio Svoboda on 13 October 2025.
It is available here.
Radio Svoboda is the Russian-language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), known for its independent journalism and critical coverage of state corruption and repression across Russia and Eastern Europe.
Summary by ZN
Women at the frontline of Taiwan’s democratic renewal
From homemakers to activists, Taiwanese women have taken to the streets to protect their democracy from Beijing’s influence. Their movement is reshaping both the nation’s politics and the meaning of civic power.
Early this summer, the streets of Taipei pulsed with energy. Thousands gathered outside the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s parliament, demanding accountability from lawmakers accused of being too close to China. “The members of parliament went too far; I had to do something,” said a 35-year-old woman – one among thousands of Taiwanese women that have mobilised in recent months to impeach pro-China officials. Later dubbed “the Great Recall”, this unprecedented movement marked a turning point in Taiwan’s history. Even more strikingly, for the first time, women have made up the majority of those mobilised.
According to Politis, the movement emerged from the political turmoil following Taiwan’s January 2024 presidential and legislative elections. Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a staunch advocate of Taiwan’s independence, won the presidency. Yet the pro-China Kuomintang (KMT) secured the most seats in the unicameral parliament. The KMT, favouring closer ties with Beijing, forged an alliance with members of a new party to seize control of the legislature and swiftly passed a series of controversial laws that sparked widespread outrage. It holds a conciliatory nationalist stance toward Beijing and maintaining ties with mainland China.
In response, citizens began launching impeachment campaigns in districts represented by KMT deputies. Taiwan’s Constitution uniquely permits the recall of elected officials – and the campaign’s scale was staggering: out of the 52 KMT seats held, 31 were targeted simultaneously. The KMT denounced the movement as politically motivated interference from the ruling party and attempted to organise counter-impeachments against DPP officials, but without any success. The contrast only underscored the extraordinary nature of the grassroots uprising.
“As a Taiwanese citizen, I had to take a stand. It’s as if our democracy is under attack,” Molly, one of the movement’s key organisers tells Politis. Stylishly dressed, yet masked and wearing a beret to preserve her anonymity, Molly’s been involved since the start. Like many organisers, she was struck by the overwhelming number of women who volunteered.
Women have long played a significant role in Taiwanese politics. Nearly half of the seats in the Legislative Yuan (47 out of 113) are held by women, and female activists were central to the 2014 Student Sunflower Movement. Molly and others see their activism as part of this broader legacy of civic engagement and feminist leadership.
“In this campaign, many women are playing a leading role,” notes sociologist Ming-sho Ho, a professor at National Taiwan University. He sees the Great Recall as part of a wider social shift towards gender parity and a demand for new political voices.
“Women in general have a heightened awareness of threats because they already have to ensure their daily safety in a patriarchal society,” explains Wen Liu, a research associate at the Sinica Academy’s Institute of Ethnology. “Many of these female volunteers are not young. They are mothers, between 35 and 50 years old,” she adds.
Among them is Peiyging, a 52-year-old homemaker, getting involved in politics for the first time. “I’m involved because I’m a mother of three. We have to mobilise because it’s our duty, because it’s the country we have to protect. We’re in a very dangerous situation,” she tells Politis.
“The campaign has allowed us to create a space,” Molly hopes. Whatever happens, they all affirm that they will continue to act to protect Taiwan. For Molly and her peers, the Great Recall is about more than removing corrupt officials, it’s about reclaiming ownership of Taiwan’s democracy. In standing up to both political complacency and the shadow of Beijing, these women have turned outrage into action and anxiety into agency. Whatever the outcome, their movement has already redrawn the boundaries of civic engagement in Taiwan.
Original article ‘À Taïwan, les femmes écrivent l’histoire’ by Aurélie Loek was published in French by Politis on 3 September 2025.
It is available here.
Politis is a weekly left-wing “anti-capitalist” French news magazine published in Paris.
Summary by TMH
That’s all for now – we hope you’ve enjoyed the read. Keep an eye out for our next Dispatch of summaries this time next week!
The Translator team