CAIRO: Sayyed Ragheb was already struggling to keep his family afloat, earning less than $100 a month. Now he fears it will get even worse after Egypt hiked fuel prices because of the Iran war.
The father of four school-age children works day-to-day in cafes and sometimes in construction. With prices of meat and produce jumping just the past week, he worries about meeting his family’s basic needs.
“This means a price increase for everything,” said Ragheb, as he served hot drinks at a cafe on a recent evening in Cairo. “This is catastrophic for someone like me.”
Egypt is one of the few countries in the Middle East not directly affected by the war, now in its third week with no sign of abating. It’s not part of the US-Israeli campaign against Iran, and it hasn’t been targeted by Iranian missile and drone fire, like Arab Gulf nations, or by Israeli bombardment, like Lebanon.
But the nation of over 108 million people is feeling the conflict’s repercussions. Soaring energy prices forced the government to implement a steep hike in the prices of subsidized fuel and cooking gas.
