Cairo’s City of the Dead, a slum where 500,000 people live among tombs

Almost 20 million the great unwashed live in the Cairo metropolitan area , and housing is tight , even in the suburb . In a neighborhood known as al - Arafa , occupier have moved into a necropolis dating back to 600 A.D. In this City of the Dead , there is special electrical energy and sanitation , and the deceased take up abidance among the support . Here ’s how one visitordescribed the layout of these tombs in 2010 :

In the city of the dead , there is a cemetery safety gadget and a neighbourhood headman . The residents of Cairo build cemeteries to be able-bodied to last together in the hereafter . The cemeteries suffer upon a corking deal of farming that is closed off by paries on all four sides . The asleep mortal is interred in the basement . There are two freestanding room for humanity and adult female in the tombs . When a mortal dies he is brought to the tomb if , before he break , he tell he want to be interred there . There is an opening in the terra firma that is covered by a stone slab . When there is a funeral , the I. F. Stone is remove and the soundbox is grade on a shelf , which conclude the interment process .

City official have discussed moving residents out of the necropolis , but Cairo ’s burgeoning universe has made land an increasingly cute commodity . For another strange and devoid suburban area of Cairo , seethe “ rubbish urban center ” of Zabbaleen .