On 22 May, television presenter Lamees El Hadidi decried the loss of heritage resulting from the demolitions on her talk show, Kelma Akheera (Last Word). The fight to save Cairo’s historic cemeteries, however, has lately regained substantial traction. Various initiatives have since attempted to halt the demolitions, including the Safeguard of Historic Cairo’s Cemeteries, launched in late 2021 by historian and architect Tareq Al-Murry to raise popular support through talks, petitions, exhibitions, and social media.ĭespite many efforts, hundreds of graves have already been razed and many more await the same fate, including in the districts of Al Imam Al Shafi and Al Sayeda Nafisa, which date back respectively to the ninth and seventh centuries. In 2021, UNESCO expressed concern about the demolition of tombs and mausoleums in the City of the Dead, noting that this “could have a major impact on the historic urban fabric of these parts of the property and channel more traffic into the city”. The removals aim to make space for the construction of new main roads, to improve traffic flow in the congested capital. In the past two years, dozens of cemeteries in Cairo’s City of the Dead – a vast necropolis sitting at the foot of the Citadel and dating back to the seventh century – have been marked for demolition. Over the past week, the ongoing demolition of cemeteries in Historic Cairo, an area of the capital listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a World Heritage Site, has stirred public outcry and reinvigorated arguments over heritage conservation in Egypt. Just as monumental is the debate over the preservation of this heritage amidst rapid urban development. The heart of Egypt’s capital is home to an immense wealth of historically significant monuments and districts – from the ruins of Al-Fustat, to the Cairo Citadel, and Mamluk palaces dating back to the thirteenth century. Demolition of Historic Cairo Cemeteries Stirs Public Outcry in Egypt

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