With a message of fighting terrorism through the art of theater, the Sharm el-Sheikh International Festival for Youth (SITFY) brought together performers from around the world to share their stories and give Egyptians a taste of other cultures.

For its second run, from April 1-8, the festival hosted 18 theater performances from 15 different countries, including Egypt, France, Iraq, Italy, Kuwait, Mexico, Oman, Spain, South Korea and Tunisia, temporarily transforming the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh into a cultural hotspot of events.

“By establishing this festival, we wanted to respond in a cultural way to all the terrorist attacks that have recently taken place, because culture and arts are our way to enlighten the minds of people,” Mazen El-Gharabawy, festival president, told Al-Monitor.

SITFY was first held in January 2016, a few months after the downing of a Russian plane in the Sinai Peninsula in October 2015. At that time, a number of countries, including Russia, the United Kingdom and France, decided to suspend flights to Sharm el-Sheikh. Egypt experienced a tragic drop in tourist visits, a crisis from which it still suffers.