Why is Egypt's army now in the baby formula business?

On Sept. 3, the Egyptian armed forces issued a statement announcing their intention to import the first shipment of baby formula, just one day after citizens cut off the road to protest the shortage of fortified baby formula. On Sept. 19, the first shipments arrived from France.

In his statement, the military spokesman warned citizens of being misled by rumors, saying, “Citizens must realize that the armed forces exert all efforts to ease the burden on ordinary citizens.”

This stirred a campaign of sarcasm and mockery on social networking sites criticizing the army’s repeated intervention in civil life sectors, including the education sector through Badr International Schools (BIS).

On its official website, BIS identifies itself as “one of the goals that the Egyptian armed forces has had for years now, and that is finally being implemented successfully by the primary decision-maker and supervisor himself, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.”

The website adds, “We proudly follow the Egyptian armed forces’ code of conduct in order to pave the smoothest educational ways for each of our students.”

The Third Field Army Command has been involved in the school’s management to the extent that the Third Army commander himself is referred to as the “Chairman of the Board of Directors of BIS” on the school’s Facebook page.