On first approaching it, one might think that the settlement ahead was completely deserted. The old leper’s colony is two kilometres away from the main road to Amreya, on the outskirts of the city of Alexandria. It sits in a grove thick with fig and prickly pear trees; these have been planted over the years by the leprosy patients who once lived and worked here.

On first approaching it, one might think that the settlement ahead was completely deserted. The old leper’s colony is two kilometres away from the main road to Amreya, on the outskirts of the city of Alexandria. It sits in a grove thick with fig and prickly pear trees; these have been planted over the years by the leprosy patients who once lived and worked here.

The dormitories in the settlement are white brick and they were built years ago by the British who once colonized Egypt.  And although it may not look like it at first, there are still people living here: 45 patients who inhabit the leper colony like phantoms from the past. They were isolated from society when the disease was incurable and contagious and although it can now be treated, the patients here have lost their way back to an ordinary life.

Mahmoud Ali, 69, is one of these. He has three children but they haven’t visited him in 30 years for fear of infection.  Mohammed Hendawi, 82, is another – his family has not been here for 50 years. And he says he doesn’t want to leave because he doesn’t know how he will be treated by the rest of society.

“We live here despite the best efforts of people in charge of this settlement to get rid of us – as if we were locusts,” Ali complains. “And there are no medicines supplied to us any longer. We have to buy them ourselves with the money that certain charities give us. There’s also a shortage of drinkable water – it is supplied for only one hour every morning. We’re often in danger of drought here. Also, the electricity is always being cut off so we spend a lot of time in darkness.”

At first this may seem like another story of negligence within a failing public healthcare system. But there s a more inhumane element to it – the patients feel they are trapped here. “I have never left,” Ali explains, “not because doctors kept me here but because I am frightened of what society will do.”

According to Alexandria University dermatologist, Wagih Abdul-Aziz, these kinds of colonies should be closed, especially as there is now a cure for leprosy, albeit an expensive one.  This is a main reason why there are no longer any new patients coming to the leper colonies in Egypt, the one in Amreya and another in the Abbassia neighbourhood in Cairo. Those who remain arrived decades ago.

In fact, the colonies are no longer places of treatment. In reality they are now housing complexes for those cast out by society and deserted by their families.  

“There is no next generation of patients so there’s any justification for these leper colonies anymore,” Abdul-Aziz says. “I believe that the state should provide alternative housing and social welfare for these elderly people living in the settlements. They’re poor people and they have no ways of supporting themselves.”

Meanwhile back at the settlement in Amreya, 82-year-old Hendawi is doing what he usually does: he spends most of his days farming on the settlement, planting onion, tomatoes, figs and prickly pears. “Really we are only just alive,” the old patient says. “All we can do is keep breathing.”