Date published: 10/11/2024 – 02:12Changed: 10/11/2024 – 02:10

4 minutes

“Death itself is a tragedy. Here you relive that tragedy,” said the 43-year-old, whose 23 relatives in total were exhumed from the family tomb in a vast cemetery known as City of the City. He died in Old Cairo.

Thousands of graves have been destroyed since 2020 in the UNESCO World Heritage site, one of the oldest necropolises in the Muslim world.

It is the last piece of Cairo’s history to be torn apart as authorities aggressively rebuild parts of the city that has long been a cultural symbol of the Arab world.

Egypt’s government says demolition of the cemetery is necessary to build new roads and bridges that they hope will improve traffic in the congested, densely populated capital, home to about 22 million people.

But it is a painful ordeal for families like Meligui’s, whose 105-year-old family tomb, built in traditional Islamic style with large wooden gates and a large courtyard, is scheduled to be demolished.

“I had to separate the men’s bones from the women,” the father of three said, describing an Islamic burial tradition.

“The most heartbreaking moment was when I found the shroud of my grandfather, who raised me, torn and shattered. The bones fell to the ground and I had to pick them up from the ground,” he said, holding the photo of his grandmother and grandfather. her four children were abducted more than 50 years ago.

Speaking from his luxury home in western Cairo, Meligui said the remains were transferred to a hearse for reburial at a new cemetery in Fayoum province, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) away.

‘An indescribable pain’

The Egyptian government has offered families alternative burial sites outside Cairo, but those cemeteries are smaller and more remote, according to many people whose family’s graves are there.

An official at Egypt’s planning ministry told AFP that the government “understands the pain of citizens” but that the process was ultimately in the “public interest”.

A massive concrete bridge now passes through the cemetery, connecting Cairo’s eastern district of Mokattam with the central and western part of the capital, halving the previous one-hour commute.

“The whole area has changed dramatically,” said Meligui, who owns a construction company.

The Khayalah cemetery, not far from his family’s gravesite, was completely razed in April 2020 and replaced with a bustling new multi-lane highway.

Jewelery maker Mokhtar, 63, who asked to use a pseudonym to speak freely, said he felt “indescribable pain” as he exhumed family members, including his sister, just five months after his funeral.

“Imagine digging your family’s graves with your own hands and putting their bones in bags,” he said.

The Mukhtar, who visits the cemetery every month, arranged for new shrouds and a hearse to rebury the maternal family’s remains in a government-provided area.

“I moved my sister as she was, her body was completely filled with blood,” he said.

‘Where should I go?’

Mokhtar said the new high-speed road through his family’s grave was not worth the price.

“Whether it is easy or not. My loss is irreparable,” he said.

The destruction of cemeteries in Cairo harmed not only the dead and their families, but also the thousands of people who made the holy sites their home.

Thousands of Egyptians have been living in cemeteries since the 1980s due to a severe housing crisis in the country with a population of 107 million.

Sayyed al-Arabi, 71, who has lived in Old Cairo for decades and works as a cemetery caretaker, is one of these residents.

His one-room house, where his three children were born, is now surrounded by piles of rubble from collapsed graves. Outside, a bulldozer levels the waterlogged unpaved ground.

“They told us they were going to remove the bodies and destroy the cemetery,” he said, as a television and a rusty fan hung next to two dilapidated beds.

In the large courtyard of the cemetery built in 1925, Arabi’s grandchildren were playing while doing laundry under the watchful eyes of their mother.

“The grave owners will be given a new one, what about me? Where should I go?”

© 2024 AFP