Travel/Tourism: Cities of the dead off tourist route
The Age
A disturbing piece about the use of Islamic cemeteries for accomodation by 600,000 of Cairo's poorest people.
Thirty years ago, Umm Antar's husband ran off with another woman, leaving her with no money and four daughters to feed. She was forced to go and live among Cairo's dead — and become something of a tourist attraction.
These are the people who have been pushed to the margins of Egyptian society by Cairo's housing squeeze and wealth gap — victims of misfortune and neglect who the Egyptian Government now wants to make invisible.
The Cities of the Dead, the sprawling cemeteries in central Cairo where an estimated 600,000 people live, often in small tombs without electricity or water, are having a "damaging impact on Egypt's civilised image", according to a letter sent out to Egyptian tourism operators.
Egypt's Interior Ministry is threatening to strip travel agents of their licences if they arrange tours to the cemeteries or allow tourists to photograph the necropolis and its residents. It has also closed key tourist attractions within the cemeteries including the Qaitbey mosque — which features on Egypt's one pound note — in a bid to keep foreigners away.
The letter, sent by the tourism peak body to travel agents at the behest of the ministry, says "photos taken and conversations held by tourists with residents" are damaging Egypt's image and states the Tourism and Antiquities Police have "permanently banned" tours and photography.
See the above page for the full story.
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