Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Coaker on 19 September 2024 (HL783), what progress they have made towards (1) identifying and marking the graves of Egyptians who died serving the UK during the First World War, including in the Egyptian Labour Corps, and (2) recovering the records of all Egyptians who served with UK forces.

Further to the information provided to the noble Lady in February 2022, January 2023 and September 2024, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) has made notable progress in identifying 23 Egyptian Labour Corps and Camel Transport Corps personnel at Haifa War Cemetery. These men, whose graves cannot be individually identified amongst almost 90 of their unknown comrades, will receive special markers within the cemetery for the first time since the First World War. While ongoing instability in the region limits what can be achieved on the ground in the short term, preparations have been made to produce the headstones in readiness for more favourable conditions.

The CWGC continues to work to recover the names of the 16,500 other Egyptian personnel known to have died across the Middle East in British service during the First World War. These men have only ever been commemorated collectively by the Commission’s Giza Memorial. The records sought, if they survive, are believed to be in the possession of the Egyptian state archives or one or more departments of the Government of Egypt. CWGC continues to raise this matter with the Egyptian authorities but is yet to gain access to the information it requires.

The Commission's wider historical research in archives across Africa and Europe continues to make positive progress in revealing the names of those previously not commemorated, and in mapping potential burial sites. To date, more than 20,600 names have been recovered, and CWGC is actively working to commemorate these individuals in a manner befitting their service and loss.