No Room For The Dead

Statistics suggest that 1 in 18 people in Cairo now live in the City of the Dead, using catacombs and monuments as housing.

The reason? The Egyptian population, like much of the Arab world, has exploded over the last 60 years. Egypt for instance has a current population of 77 million, but had only 10 million in 1900, and still only 20 million in 1950. At current rates of growth, its expected to be about 117 million by 2050 AD, which is unsustainable, and means that Egypt has no way of providing potable water, food, housing, or creating enough jobs for this expected population.

So people are living in the tombs of medieval Egyptian 'notables', such as as the family mausoleum of Muhammad Ali, the founder of modern day Egypt, and his sons.

According to Dr Ibrahim El-Issawy, an economist for a government advisory body, The Institute of National Planning "It's a desperate situation for these people - but it is not only in the City of the Dead, there are tens of slums… they are everywhere around Egypt. They are crying out for 'basic' needs; good public education, health services, employment opportunities. They are not there," he added. "Except for the privileged few."

Added to the issues of jobs, housing and water, there are the added social problems these bring such as the fact that many young people can't afford a family. In the city of Cairo, the average age of marriage has jumped to 31 and this has led to mass sexual attacks on young women by males who have little chance of getting a wife.

The only option the young of Egypt have is the emigrate, but they don't want to go to other Muslim countries, because they are as bad or worse than Egypt, no they all want to emigrate to Non Muslim countries (The US or EU), legally or illegally, and that's why we should all be concerned about squatters in the Tombs of Old Cairo.