(MENAFN) Human Rights Watch on Monday said that Egypt's military operation against an affiliate of the Daesh group in North Sinai is threatening to spark a humanitarian crisis, Arab News reported.
The New York-based organization claimed that the operation launched on February 9 "has left up to 420,000 residents in four northeastern cities in urgent need of humanitarian aid."
The campaign "has included imposing severe restrictions on the movement of people and goods in almost all of" North Sinai, HRW said in a report.
Human Rights Watch also said authorities had "cut water and electricity almost entirely in the most eastern areas of North Sinai, including Rafah and Sheikh Zuwayed."
In early February, the Egyptian military launched a major campaign against "terrorist and criminal elements and organizations" across the country, focusing on the northern and central Sinai region, where Islamic State militants have waged a deadly insurgency against Cairo, the Sinai Peninsula has remained the epicenter of a militant insurgency since 2013, when the army ousted Mohamed Morsi in a military coup.
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