El Shatt refugee camp

The El Shatt was a complex of World War II refugee camps in the desert of the Sinai peninsula in Egypt, established in early 1944.

[1][2][3] The region of Dalmatia (in today's modern Croatia, then Yugoslavia) was evacuated by the Allies, following the September 1943 Italian surrender and ahead of a German invasion.

Fleeing the German offensive in the fall and winter of 1943–1944 and in fear of reprisals, nearly 40,000 civilians escaped to the remote island of Vis.

Scarce of food and unable to ensure their protection, the allies decided to send the evacuated refugees and non-combatant population of the island to southern Italy, first to Bari and then to Taranto.

[2] El Shatt near Suez, along with the camps at Tolumbat and Khatatba, was chosen to become the new home for the Dalmatians, and only a few thousand remained in Italy.

Images from the Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information collection (Library of Congress), dated September 1944.