by Yasmin El-Rifae
We recently visited the area of Cairo known as the “City of the Dead,” or “el-Ma’aber” (the graves) in Arabic. For decades, people have lived on the grounds of this cemetery, in rows of cardboard shacks, facing a high fence marking the edge of the cemetery. Behind them are thousands of graves.
“It’s a sin to live on top of the dead, we will all be punished for this. But what else can we do?” one woman told me.
“My neighbor and I have both gone to apply for government housing at least three times,” another woman named Om Mohamed said.
“They keep telling me to come back, they never give me a reason or an explanation why. I am not greedy, all I want is one room, with four walls, for me and my children,” she said.
