Ramlet Boulak is on the Nile’s eastern bank in downtown Cairo. Its vital location makes it a borderline between an upper-class area with commercial and shopping towers, like the expensive towers of the Nile City and Arcadia, which directly overlook the river opposite Zamalek’s wealthy neighborhood and a slum with informal settlements like Qorood, Sabtiya and Um Said, which extend to the beginning of the poor Boulak neighborhood.

Ramlet Boulak is on the Nile’s eastern bank in downtown Cairo. Its vital location makes it a borderline between an upper-class area with commercial and shopping towers, like the expensive towers of the Nile City and Arcadia, which directly overlook the river opposite Zamalek’s wealthy neighborhood and a slum with informal settlements like Qorood, Sabtiya and Um Said, which extend to the beginning of the poor Boulak neighborhood.

In one of those slums, Walid Majdi, silent, angry and about to break down in tears, stands next to his friend, to check the latter’s house, which has been just inspected by the police. His friend says the police have taken all the money he has saved for the children’s education. Walid, 35-years old, looks around and says that the police campaigns have become a normal thing to see. His brother is still in prison after the latest clashes last July between Ramlet Boulak’s residents and the police. They were charged with attacking the Nile City Towers.

Owned by the renowned businessman Naguib Sawiris, these towers play a major role in the lives of the neighborhood residents. They are a source of drinking water, which is very limited in the neighborhood, and were, until very recently, a source of livelihood for many residents before most of them were sacked, according to Walid, by those in charge of the towers.

“I had worked as a security guard in a tower like many of the area’s residents with an average salary of L.E. 1500 ($US 245) and I was treated well,” says Walid.” At the beginning of security stability five months ago, we were surprised by a sudden drop in our salaries to L.E. 1000 ($ US 164) then down to 800 ($ US 131).  Several residents were sacked on the pretext that they were no longer needed. This worsened the relationship with the tower administration, which had replaced them with a group of thugs and ex-cons with salaries amounting to 5,000 pounds (US $819).”

Egyptian morals

The honeymoon between the residents and the tower administration started during the revolution. “During the revolution insecurity”, explains Walid, “we all, women, men and children, rushed to protect the tower from the thugs of the informal settlements behind our area. This was the starting point of the relationship between us and Sawiris who thanked us on TV for protecting his possessions. We showed the true morals of Egyptians. The attack on the tower in our presence would be an insult to us.”

As a reward, Sawiris sent meals for the residents who left their homes and slept in front of the towers to protect them, then he offered many of them jobs as security guards in the hotel, which many considered to be a great opportunity, including Walid who immediately quit his job as a hawker and started working as security guard.

Water clashes

For Walid, this step would open a new horizon to solve the neighborhood’s chronic problems. The area, in his opinion, suffers from a complete absence of development projects and the residents live without clean water. They only own the pieces of the land they live on. The government would get interested in the area only to empty it from its residents and make investments on their lands.

“After kicking most of us out,” says Walid, a fire broke out in one of the cottages last July and the residents went to the tower to get water from one of its taps, but the administration refused their request and asked the police to protect the tower. “Things developed into clashes with the police and I got shot in my eye by the police. The fire killed a four-year child”, Walid explained.

“The majority of the Ramlet residents were sacked and we were denied having water from the hotel’s back taps. In brief, they exploited the stable security situation and got rid of us after they took what they needed,” he added.

“Either developing or buying the lands with reasonable prices”

Walid got frustrated when his leg and eye were shot in the clashes. “We were a borderline and we showed the true morals of Egyptians, but we won’t give up our rights”, he said. In Walid’s view, these rights are either developing or buying the lands with reasonable prices. He doesn’t cling to living in this area.

“They think we distort their high towers and want to throw us away but they don’t know that we are just a borderline to more dangerous areas. If they remove us, they will face hundreds of areas behind us and they will not be able to remove them.”