On the seventh day of the water cut, Ahmed Adel, 44, and his wife in the El Dahar area of Hurghada wait for a message on a WhatsApp group that the Red Sea Water Company created for the area’s residents, informing them of when pumping will resume after eight consecutive days of interruption, so that they can fill the tanks lined up on the roof of their house for another week.
The two remain alert around the clock for fear of missing the company’s alert, which may arrive at any hour, and not managing to fill a tank that barely covers cooking, drinking and personal hygiene until the next scheduled pumping.
This is the rhythm of life in Hurghada this summer: water that reaches the tanks every eight days, and a black market in which the price of a cubic metre reaches EGP 500 (about $10), in a city whose former governor estimated its deficit alone at about 45,000 cubic metres per day in the summer of 2025, while the governorate today estimates its entire deficit at about 100,000 cubic metres per day, even as the city receives millions of tourists and adds hotel rooms year after year. This report is about Hurghada, the capital of the Red Sea Governorate and its largest city and the one with the most hotels; however, most figures on the deficit, production and hotel rooms are only officially issued at the governorate level, and so the scope of each figure is indicated alongside it: the city, the governorate, or the country. Between residents who pay the price of the deficit and hotels that deny they are its cause, the report traces the threads of the crisis in the city.
To get water, residents watch for the company’s alerts on the WhatsApp groups it has created for each area, and on its official Facebook page, so that they can fill their tanks before the next cut. Whoever misses the pumping time has no option left but to buy water from a company vehicle at EGP 140 per cubic metre (about $2.9), or to turn to residents’ tankers, until the water returns the following week.
The “rotation” system: a tank for every home
“Filling tanks is an old habit in Hurghada; we have no direct pumping, so it is essential for every citizen to own a tank that he fills when the water is pumped at its scheduled time, so that it lasts him through the days when it is cut off,” Ahmed tells Zawia3.
He adds that before the crisis water was pumped two days a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, and his tank, which has a capacity of four cubic metres, covered his family’s needs to some extent. But since the cut has become eight days long, he wakes up at any hour of the night, “at two in the morning or four at dawn”, to fill it, unlike the large ground-level tanks in the old apartment buildings, whose capacity reaches 25 cubic metres and which store huge quantities that used to ease this hardship.
What Ahmed describes as the absence of direct pumping, the company calls the “rotation system”; in an official response published by the Holding Company for Drinking Water and Wastewater last May, after an article by the writer Mohamed Shata about the Hurghada crisis, it acknowledged that water operation in the city “relies on rotations in some areas, given limited production”, with operation 24 hours a day in other areas whose networks have been upgraded. On 15 July, Major General Engineer Bahaa Abdel Moneim Sayed El-Ahl, chairman of the Red Sea Drinking Water and Wastewater Company, inspected network rehabilitation works in the Mubarak 11, Star City and Mubarak 5 areas of Hurghada in preparation for including them in the system of “direct pumping 24 hours a day and abolishing the traditional rotation system”, meaning that continuous pumping is still a goal the company is working towards neighbourhood by neighbourhood.
The crisis did not arise overnight; according to a number of residents who spoke to Zawia3, it has stretched over years and worsened during the last four years: where water used to be pumped every three days, it is now every eight.
The Kureimat line and the Al-Yusr plant: a crisis that recurs every summer
Residents’ complaints escalated at the beginning of May 2025 because of the recurrence of the crisis year after year, while officials repeatedly replied that the cause was a break in the Kureimat line, which feeds the city of Hurghada, and that work was under way to repair it. In the same year, Major General Amr Hanafi, then governor of the Red Sea, began operating the project to duplicate the Kureimat line on a 27-kilometre section between Ras Ghareb and Hurghada, at a cost of EGP 950 million (about $19.7 million), to secure about 30,000 cubic metres per day for the people of Hurghada and to limit the recurring faults and breaks. But the crisis continued.
Adding to its severity was the shutdown in 2025 of the Al-Yusr plant in Hurghada, the largest desalination plant in the governorate, which Hanafi justified by the replacement of expired filters with imported ones, causing a deficit in the pumping of drinking water; he promised at the time to raise its production from 40,000 to 60,000 cubic metres per day within 15 days.
The governorate took urgent measures to deal with the deficit, including providing water trucks for citizens, solutions that add nothing to the water sources themselves, while the governorate seeks to build new desalination plants to be added to the 11 existing plants. On 2 August the governorate contracted for the construction of a desalination plant in the El Ahyaa area north of Hurghada with a capacity of 10,000 cubic metres per day; then, on 29 August, Governor Walid El-Barqi announced the tendering of four new plants in Safaga, El Quseir, Marsa Alam and Ras Ghareb with a total capacity of about 85,000 cubic metres per day, and Hurghada is not among them. Of the announced additions, the only ones for the city are the El Ahyaa plant and two plants that El-Barqi said on 10 August would enter operation in November and December, without specifying their capacity.
The city’s deficit and the governorate’s deficit: two figures that cannot be compared
Hurghada relies on three sources, as Amr Hanafi said on “Ala Mas’ouliyati” on 19 May 2025: the Al-Yusr plant, with a design capacity of 80,000 cubic metres per day; the Kureimat line, which feeds the city with about 30,000 cubic metres per day; and the Qena line. Hanafi said at the time that “there is no real crisis in the water of the city of Hurghada, but there are some challenges”, and that the daily deficit in the city alone was about 45,000 cubic metres, due to the heavy pressure of tourists and residents on these sources, encroachments on the Kureimat line that weaken its flow, and the decline in Al-Yusr’s production to 40,000 cubic metres because of the filters. Before Al-Yusr began operating, the city relied entirely on Nile water through the Qena and Kureimat lines, which are 220 and 500 kilometres long, according to Akhbar El-Yom.
In mid-August, El-Barqi said that the entire governorate suffers from a severe drinking water deficit estimated at about 100,000 cubic metres per day, and that its current production, at the governorate level, does not exceed 162,000 cubic metres per day from desalination plants and the water arriving through the Kureimat and Qena lines, a production far below the population’s actual needs, with a more severe impact in Hurghada. Days earlier, El-Barqi said in a phone-in to “Ala Mas’ouliyati” that “the water challenge emerged three years ago”, that the governorate relies on the Kureimat and Qena stations, and that “the deficit is coming from the duplication of the Kureimat line”.
The two figures cannot be compared: 45,000 is the city’s deficit in the summer of 2025, and 100,000 is the deficit of the entire governorate in the summer of 2026, and the governorate does not publish Hurghada’s own share of the latter figure. El-Barqi attributed the deficit to urban and population expansion and tourist facilities, the limited natural water sources, and the governorate’s reliance on external water lines, adding that the increase in the numbers of tourists and of workers in the tourism sector had doubled the crisis and created unprecedented pressure on the system of water production, transport and distribution in the governorate’s various cities. He said in the same phone-in that foreign tourism “did not exceed 5.5 million, and last year it reached 7 million, and every tourist needs three tourism workers alongside him”. El-Barqi was not alone in linking the crisis to tourism expansion; the previous year, Hanafi described Hurghada as one of the cities facing the most pressure from domestic and foreign tourism, which increased citizens’ complaints.
As for the Holding Company for Drinking Water and Wastewater, it said in its response last May that it had replaced about 50% of the Al-Yusr plant’s membranes in March and April 2025 at a cost of about EGP 100 million (about $2.1 million), and that its plan includes four new desalination plants with a total capacity of 85,000 cubic metres per day and additional projects with a capacity of 110,000 cubic metres per day as part of a strategy extending to 2050. Shata commented that the response set out the efforts made but did not answer the most important question: is the current system capable of supplying water continuously to all areas of Hurghada, and where do water traders get quantities that never run out while the water is cut off from the official networks?
Hurghada first in number of hotels
According to a statistical report carried by Al-Masry Al-Youm, Hurghada received about two million tourists of various nationalities in the first half of the year, with occupancy rates in many hotels and tourist villages rising to between 90 and 100%. In mid-August, El-Barqi announced the entry into service of 11 thousand new hotel rooms across all the governorate’s cities between January and July, led by Hurghada as the largest tourist centre, without specifying the city’s share of these rooms.
Hurghada ranks first in the number of hotels in the governorate according to the directory of fixed hotel establishments issued by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, with 159 hotels, followed by Marsa Alam with 64 hotels, then Safaga with 28, El Gouna with 20, and El Quseir with 16.
At the national level, the number of hotel establishments in 2024 reached 1,284 establishments with a capacity of 228,146 rooms, the largest share of them in the Red Sea, according to Mohamed Amer, head of the Central Administration for Hotel Establishments at the Ministry of Tourism, who said in 2025 that the addition of more than 5,000 rooms since the beginning of that year had raised the total to about 234,000 rooms, and that Egypt is targeting 500,000 rooms by 2031 in order to receive 30 million tourists a year. The Red Sea is the largest governorate in terms of the number of hotels according to the ministry’s data, and it also topped the tourist regions in the number of luxury hotels with 26 hotels, followed by Greater Cairo with 23, then South Sinai with 17, the North Coast with eight, and Luxor with seven.
Sayed El-Gabry, head of the Red Sea Chamber of Tourism Companies, said that this increase in hotel rooms is in line with the rise in tourist traffic in the governorate, while Mohamed Shamrokh, managing director of a hotel group, pointed out that a single room is linked to three to four direct and indirect jobs. While hotel expansion represents a source of investment and jobs, the governor believes that the increase in rooms and tourists adds pressure on the governorate’s water needs.
“We are no longer a burden on the government”
Rami Fayez, a board member of the Chamber of Hotel Establishments and head of the Marsa Alam marketing committee, denies that the expansion of tourist establishments is a cause of the water deficit, and tells Zawia3 that the Red Sea hotels, whose number he estimates at about 290 across the governorate, rely to a large extent on private desalination plants, and that new hotels in Hurghada increased over the past two years by between 7 and 10%, that is, about 15 to 20 hotels that are still under construction, so they cannot be the cause of the crisis. As for the existing hotels in Hurghada itself, they have, according to him, fresh-water connections just like other commercial establishments, while a large number of hotels in Marsa Alam and El Quseir in particular rely on desalination plants or wells; that is, what he says about private desalination applies mainly to Marsa Alam and El Quseir, while Hurghada’s existing hotels draw their water from the same network on which the city’s residents depend.
He adds: “In this way we no longer represent a burden on the electricity networks or even on the water networks”, explaining that before building a hotel the investor prepares the infrastructure it needs, the cost of which sometimes exceeds the cost of the building itself, and that most hotels, especially in Marsa Alam and El Quseir, have in recent years turned to building desalination plants.
However, the governorate had obliged hotels and tourist villages in its cities, while the water crisis in Hurghada was at its height, to rely on seawater desalination plants in order to provide water for residents, and required each establishment to set a date for completing the procedures for upgrading the desalination and treatment plants inside it.
Fayez criticises the decision because it imposes financial burdens on existing hotels that rely on the networks, since the cost of building a desalination plant ranges between EGP 15 and 20 million (about $311,000 to $414,000), borne by the hotel, and he believes that such decisions need more consultation with the hotel sector before they are applied.
Ali Saeed El-Dabi, chairman of the board of the Golden Beach Hotel in the El Ahyaa area of Hurghada, agrees with his cost estimate, telling Zawia3 that a private plant producing 1,000 cubic metres per day costs the investor between EGP 15 and 20 million, and that the amount doubles if he wants to raise production to 2,000 cubic metres. He recounts that his hotel had a desalination plant built about 20 years ago, but it stopped 10 years ago after it needed maintenance whose works multiplied and whose cost rose, in addition to disputes with the company that was supposed to carry out the maintenance, so he gave up on completing it. Since then the hotel has relied entirely on the government lines, and so it has been affected, like other hotels, tourist villages and residents, by a shortage crisis that began to worsen about seven years ago, according to him, and gradually widened until it reached its current state.
The hotel has 450 rooms with a capacity of about 1,200 guests, and its daily consumption ranges between 500 and 700 cubic metres, for which it pays what is known as the “tourist tariff”, which amounts, according to him, to EGP 150 per cubic metre (about $3.1). By Zawia3’s calculation, this means that each guest’s share, when the hotel is full, ranges between about 420 and 580 litres per day, that is, about three to four times the 150 litres that the head of the water company sets as a citizen’s need.
The obstacle is not limited to cost, but extends to the difficulty of obtaining licences and approvals. In 2023, a large number of owners and investors called on the ministries of tourism and environment and the governor of the Red Sea to intervene to facilitate licences for private desalination plants at their establishments to address the drinking water deficit, at the peak of the tourist season in Hurghada, amid repeated breaks in the Kureimat line and a fall in the Al-Yusr plant’s output from 80,000 to 35,000 cubic metres per day.
El-Dabi explains that building a private plant requires approvals starting with the governorate and then the Environmental Affairs Agency to reserve an intake from the sea, and that the high salinity of groundwater makes seawater the most common option for tourist establishments, but building a private intake requires approvals that take a long time. A source at the Environmental Affairs Agency had said that seawater desalination plants first require environmental studies, the approval of the Shore Protection Authority and of the Supreme Licensing Committee of the Ministry of Irrigation, and compliance with environmental conditions to protect the marine environment and groundwater.
Mohamed Karem, a tourism expert, says that a large number of hotels do not have private desalination plants because of their high cost, which pushes them to rely on the government networks.
A black market and an EGP 100,000 fine
Since the crisis intensified, Bishoy (a pseudonym), 50, has been setting aside a large sum from his salary to buy water for his tank, which has a capacity of 15 cubic metres, to make up his family’s shortfall over the week, at the expense of other household spending. Bishoy, who lives in the Magawish area of Hurghada, tells Zawia3 that the crisis has forced him to buy water on the black market at between EGP 400 and 500 per cubic metre (about $8 to $10), because some drivers refuse to sell at the governorate’s tariff of EGP 140, “so we are forced to accept the price, otherwise we will not find water”. He recalls that last year the water was cut off for 40 days, and a cubic metre cost him EGP 700 (about $14.5) on the black market at the time, so he filed a complaint with the Cabinet.
He explains that the official tariff is EGP 7 per cubic metre (about 14 cents), while the Holding Company for Drinking Water says in its response that the official price is EGP 25 per tonne (about 52 cents) and that the high prices in circulation are the result of “individual dealings outside the official framework”. Bishoy says: “So why should we bear the cost of transporting water from the company and pay EGP 140 to the residents’ tanker? The tanker is not supposed to get this price; I have a contract with the company for it to deliver water to me, not for me to look for a tanker and bring it myself amid haggling and expenses.” He believes that tackling the crisis with water distribution trucks has created a bigger problem: the water is wasted on the road and arrives about half a cubic metre short, and the trucks consume diesel and cause a diesel crisis, and they are old and unfit and narrow the streets: “The matter has many negative aspects.”
But Bahaa Abdel Moneim Sayed El-Ahl, chairman of the Red Sea Drinking Water and Wastewater Company, denies to Zawia3 the existence of any “brokering” in water delivery, and says that a citizen who requests a tanker gets it for EGP 140 per cubic metre, while the company bears the cost of delivery free of charge to areas that pumping does not reach, and that this is done in all affected areas. However, Bishoy is talking about drivers from among the residents, not about company vehicles.
The governorate is aware of this practice; on 10 August El-Barqi said that the maximum price per cubic metre is EGP 140, and that anyone who asks a citizen for more than that “pays a fine of EGP 100,000 (about $2,070) and has his water transport vehicle withdrawn”, and that the vehicles will carry the complaint numbers and violators will be caught in coordination with the Ministry of Interior, adding that the governorate is bringing in water trucks from neighbouring governorates, and that “the process of selling water is uncomfortable”.
Abdel Moneim attributes the water shortage crisis to population growth, as the available quantities are no longer sufficient, and to the fact that some tourist villages and hotels did not have desalination plants, and he adds that the summer sees the arrival of large numbers of Egyptians as well as Arab and Gulf tourists, which represents additional pressure on the available quantities. He estimates a citizen’s need at 150 litres without specifying the time period of this estimate. Assuming it is daily consumption, the following graphic shows, by Zawia3’s calculation, how much an individual or a family pays weekly to secure this quantity at tanker prices.
A “reverse order” of planning
Seif Farag, a professor of urban planning, attributes the recurrence of crises such as the drinking water shortage in the Red Sea to what he describes as haphazard planning. He tells Zawia3 that planning begins with a study called “urban economics”, which determines the volume of construction that can be absorbed and the groups it targets, whether low-, middle- or high-income, and a study of the demographic composition, the ages of the population, the numbers of children, the size of families and their needs for jobs, on the basis of which the area’s needs for drinking water, electricity, sewerage and its outfalls are determined, along with the division of land uses, building densities and building heights, as well as schools, hospitals and administrative buildings.
He believes that the study of infrastructure should have preceded urban and tourism expansion, and that the absence of detailed studies and sufficient information on the area’s needs before plans were implemented led to a gap between needs and real capacities, in a “reverse order” of the planning process in which construction work preceded the determination of needs. He adds that addressing this gap after implementation imposes a far higher financial and time cost than would have been borne had the infrastructure been planned in advance, and he recommends a comprehensive study of the current situation and an inventory of shortcomings, followed by re-planning according to current data so as to ensure that future expansions are compatible with the capacity of the utilities to absorb them.
This intersects with the view of Mohamed Karem, who says that the increase in the numbers of tourists in recent years has put pressure on Hurghada’s capacities, that a hotel establishment is required to meet the needs of everyone who comes to it even when it is not operating at full capacity, and that the city’s current capacities are not fully commensurate with the scale of the increase, which may affect basic services, including water. He points out that the pressure extends to the infrastructure of the tourist cities, some of whose projects are still under construction, such as the Marsa Alam projects and the roads linking the tourist cities, projects that fall within the state’s plans and need time, and he links the expansion to the state’s targets of receiving 30 million tourists and reaching 500,000 hotel rooms, which requires, according to him, developing infrastructure in proportion to these numbers.
While waiting for the new plants, Ahmed Adel’s family manages with a strict regime for using the tank water: tightly closing the taps, and family members taking turns to bathe, so that if one of them bathes the others wait, to preserve the stock for drinking and cooking. The regime of Bishoy’s family is not much different; at pumping time he fills his tank and waits with his family for a week until the water returns: “But we have to ration consumption; we bathe less and wash clothes at pumping time.” Until the “direct pumping” that the company is working on neighbourhood by neighbourhood reaches El Dahar and Magawish, Ahmed will keep waking up at two in the morning to fill a tank that lasts a week.
