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Egypt’s City of the Dead

City of the Dead in Cairo
A child plays next to graves in a mausoleum room where his family lives in the City of the Dead in Cairo.
(courtesy Khalil Hamra / AP)

When one mentions Egypt’s city of the dead, first things that come to mind are mummies, temples and tombs in the timeless exotic lands of the ancient Pharaohs. However, as it stands today, the city of the dead has a totally different connotation among modern Egyptians. Far away from the soaring monuments in southern Egypt, but close enough to the great Giza pyramids and right in the heart of Egypt’s capital, Cairo, stretches El ‘Arafah, a 4 miles long dense cemetery where well over half a million Egyptians live among the dead.

The cemetery is still in use; some of the tombs are hundreds of years old, others are brand new. El ‘Arafa might actually be one of the most inhabitable slums in Egypt; people living there have access to running water and electricity which were built into the infrastructure from the get go. This is not the case with other Egyptian slums where you will find the situation gloomier.  A study by the United Nations revealed that 35% of Cairo’s population live in slums today, that’s an astounding 3 million people at the least, and this is assuming official public records have been able to keep track of population increase there. Amnesty International, on the other hand, estimates the number of slum residents in the country to be 12 million.In most of these slums, basic sanitation, running water and utilities are not an option.

One such slum is Ramlet Boulaq, where poor housing quality and overcrowding conditions mean that families of 10 people or more share one small room, and that a toilet, if available, is shared by more than 35 people. Several proposals were submitted to redevelop this area, but ended up getting rejected by the slum residents due to a controversy around the conflicting promises they were given and whether these promises reflect the true real estate value inherently embedded in their land, reported the Daily News Egypt.

Ramlet Boulag
Ramlet Boulaq is a slum in downtown Cairo located in the same neighborhood as some of the city’s five star hotels and shopping malls.
(courtesy Hassan Ibrahim / Daily News Egypt)

While politics and conflicting interests are delaying interventions in the Cairo slums, poor housing conditions are unfortunately leading to a spread of diseases, increase in social problems, rise in crime rates, and serious lack of public services mainly in the health and education fields.  This also is a factor behind the increase in the country’s jobless rate which is partly compensated by a rise of the informal sector employment; slum residents now seek minor financial compensation in the form of tips from the more fortunate by helping them park their cars or clean their windshields. Many also have to resort to begging.

It is very clear that poor housing conditions in Egypt’s slums are unsustainable, and the slower we react the more difficult it will become to improve these conditions in an efficient and timely manner. What is important first and foremost is to resolve this situation while equally creating value for all stakeholders.