“Look at me! Do you see me? I’m tired, I can’t find any water and I sleep on the floor,” cries Abd El-Rahman, a resident of Qale’et El-Kabsh in Sayeda Zeinab and a victim of the fire that took away his home and dozens more at the end of March.

I have been bracing myself for the worst as I climb the stairs leading from Sayeda Zeinab to the shantytown, but nothing could have prepared me for what I see as I step onto the plateau. My first impression is that I’ve walked onto the set of a movie. Among the mounds of garbage and flies I see tiny kiosks and tents. Inside, dozens live in spaces the size of my living room. Surrounding the sparse shelters is nothing but desert as far as the eye can see. The scene is confusing; looking down from the hill, I can see the rest of Cairo with its cars and bustling urban life. My gaze is drawn back to the slum, and I could swear I’m in another world.

For Abd El-Rahman and scores of other residents, the story began long before the fire. They were once satisfied with their ekshak (kiosks), thanking God for the roof above their heads. They were promised they would be relocated, they were promised better homes and they held on to their dream, waiting for the day the Cairo governorate would move them to state-subsidized housing.

On March 20, they woke up to their worst nightmare: A fire had broken out at one of the houses after a stove blew up. Fueled by strong winds, the flames quickly spread through the wooden koshks, each packed with entire families. Within hours, 148 shelters had been damaged, most of them burned to the ground. Unable to navigate the area and reach the slum, firefighters and Civil Defense Forces first responders found it difficult to get their engines to Qale’et El-Kabsh.

Some 250 families were left without shelter.

Although there were no deaths, there were many injuries and, of course, losses. Few of the families were able to save any of their belongings. Most were lucky just to get out alive.

Almost a month later, the victims live between a rock and a very hard place. A lucky few were moved to their housing, albeit housing that they claim is often proving too small to accommodate their large families. Others are in a state of limbo with no roof to protect them from the wind, sandstorms and rain of the past month. Those left behind are the ones authorities say have no legal right to a new home. While some unlucky residents claim they have been scammed into paying down-payments to poseurs who promised to give them houses and never fulfilled their end of the deal, others have run into a wall of red tape as they are unable to prove ownership or residency.

Sitting on the door of their little room are two elderly people and a young lady cradling her baby. The baby is wearing filthy clothes that don’t seem to fit and, annoyed by the sun and the flies, is screaming his lungs out. I ask them to show me the area where the fire struck and they take me into their house and offer me tea.

As I wait for my photographer, they tell me their story, smiles fixed on their hospitable faces. And as I sit there talking to them, more and more people gather around us and join in the conversation, desperate for someone to hear them out.

The photographer arrives and the residents shepherd us through small alleys and their houses to the site of the fire. There, I see the full impact of the destruction: People living on top of ashes; tears on old ladies’ faces; children screaming for water or food; mothers trying to hush their babies, tears streaming from their own eyes; sick people trying to find some rest among all the chaos. A child plays by mixing ashes and sand with water in a small tub; a sleeping child lies nearby, his eyes covered with flies.

“I was traveling and when I came back I found that all my stuff had been burned down and they wouldn’t give me my flat in Nahda [where others have been relocated]. Now I am living on the street,” complains Sabah Abd El-Ghany, a divorced mother of two. Abd El-Ghany says she has a contract with a woman she says identified herself as Mahrousa. Mahrousa claimed to be from the government housing office and told Abd El-Ghan that she had to pay a down payment of LE 88 on her new flat before being relocated.

She hasn’t been relocated and the state doesn’t charge fees for new flats.

Abd El-Ghany, who lost her daughter’s gehaz (trousseau) in the fire as well as all her own belongings, has sent her kids to their aunt’s and is now sleeping without shelter in the streets. “I have been living here for 30 years and I have the right to be relocated, but she [Mahrousa] took away my contract and gave me nothing in return. What am I supposed to do now or where am I supposed to go? All I want is a roof over my kids’ heads,” she says.

Although scores have lived in the area for decades, some of the koshks were built by the government in 1992 for people whose homes were destroyed in that year’s massive earthquake. The residences began expanding as no other shelters were provided to them and their families started growing, forcing them to build shacks in the pathways — one reason the fire engines couldn’t get through to the blazing area.

Four years ago, the government decided to raze the slum as part of an initiative to get rid of shantytowns across the capital, exchanging housing there for new, state-built apartments.

The residents of Zeinhom, Qale’et El-Kabsh, a 59-feddan slum home to some 4,200 families, refused to leave before receiving substitute shelter. Some had been relocated to new homes before the fire. Others are still waiting, even after the disaster.

“This area was divided into three phases,” General Tarek Rashwan, ra’ees el-hayy (head of the local district council) for Sayeda Zeinab. “Phase one was done and we relocated all the people there to temporary housing in Moqqatam, Helwan and Nahda, where they’re spending a year-and-a-half taking skills courses At the same time, we are developing the buildings themselves in Zeinhom Qale’et El Kabsh. We housed 348 families to 29 building and it cost LE 25 million.

“In the second phase, we moved 948 families to 80 buildings and this cost LE 50 million. Now the buildings are all done and we have relocated some of the families from phase three before the fire happened, but there were 148 families left. Those are the houses that got burned.”

Since the fire, Rashwan says, “we moved those people [] in two days to El-Nahda and El-Salam,” adding that families that lost their homes in the fire were given LE 5,000 compensation, a stove and a television when they were moved.

But back in Qale’et El-Kabsh, many of those who remain claim the government’s system is flawed, complaining that each koshk was exchanged for just one home, regardless of the number of families that had been living under the shack’s roof.

Zeinab Mohamed, who lives in a shack with her mother-in-law and her husband’s four brothers and their families, claims she’s been told that even though she’s lived in the area for decades, she has no right to be relocated.

“My mother-in-law received a house in Nahda that can’t take all of us and so we couldn’t all move there,” Mohamed says. “They wouldn’t give us any more houses because they say the contract is in my mother-in-law’s name and so she is the one entitled to a new house.”

Rashwan agrees it’s a problem, explaining that while “several families live in one house and we give them a flat to replace the house,” cases have been recorded of outsiders moving in with owners in the hopes they, too, would be given new accommodations.

Others have birth certificates or beta’as (state ID cards) issued in other districts. With no proof of residence in Zeinhom, they too have no right to be relocated.

“I have two kids,” says Omm Hashem Fikry. “One who is four and the other is eight. I have been living here for four years, but my husband is from Saeed and so the kids’ birth certificates are from there and they wouldn’t give us a house.”

To this Rashwan has an easy solution: All they need to prove residence, he says, is a gas or electricity bill in their names.

That’s far easier said than done.

“The rain is pouring on us and the kids are getting sick and [police] won’t even let us get an electricity cable from the neighbors,” says Nagat Saber, whose house was destroyed in the fire. Although she has a contract, she doesn’t have an electricity or water bill to prove her residency and so she hasn’t been given a house.

“We have little use for contracts,” says Rashwan. “Several censuses have been conducted in this area before from many authorities and we know who lives there and who doesn’t. Some of the people who were approved for relocation sold their koshks along with their contracts. There’s been a lot of cheating, which is why a gas or electricity bill is better proof.”

Slowing down the relocation process, Rashwan says, are non-residents trying to capitalize on the tragedy. The hayy ( has told eligible residents to get rid of the newcomers if they want to be moved into their new homes.

“We have kicked out all [the] strangers and [the government] still didn’t give us our flats,” claims Aisha Kamal, who is wearing clothes given to her by neighbors. Her modest demand is to have access to water so that she can wash up to pray — something she hasn’t been able to do for the past month.

Stranded on the streets without shelter, water or electricity — and just as they thought their lives couldn’t get any worse — residents were visited just a week after the blaze by bulldozers tasked with tearing down the torched homes. The residents, thinking the machines were there to raze the entire slum, began pelting them with stones.

Their stones were answered with tear gas. Many were injured, with some hospitalized for treatment of allergies and asthma, among other conditions.

“We have been living here for 30 years, and at the end they come bomb us with tear gas and hit us with their sticks as if we were in a war. They tell us, ‘leave and you don’t have the right to be relocated or even to stay set where you are,’” rails Mohamed.

“They bombed us with tear gas so that we leave; two kids died and one is still lying in intensive care. My husband had asthma and he is still in the hospital,” alleges Fikry.

“My nephew is in the hospital being treated because his eardrum [was damaged], and my kid was hospitalized for two days,” claims Zeinab Sayed, holding a toddler swaddled in dirty clothes and flies.

Their electricity cut off, no roof over their heads and little aid from the government, the residents decided to fend for themselves. “We wanted to build eshash [coops], but the [police] told us not to, and they said those whose houses got burnt just have to sit on the ashes and live there. They won’t let us build anything to protect us from the sun or the rain and we don’t have money or a shelter or even a blanket,” complains Abeer El-Sayed, whose birth certificate is issued from to Qale’et El-Kabsh but who still hasn’t been given the right to a flat.

As hard as their lives are, water and electricity aren’t their biggest concerns. The residents have also had to deal with the prying eyes of the public, invading what little privacy they had. “They light their mobiles to see us at night,” claims local resident Madiha Yousry.

To protect their women from outsiders, many men have found themselves forced to sit home from work, leaving them with another problem: no money. “Men aren’t going to their jobs anymore so that they stay home and protect the women. There are bullies and there are addicts,” says Fikry.

Looking up, I am stunned to see a group of men tearing down a building. “Our stuff was all burned down and we can’t find anything to eat or drink,” Amal Abd El-Ghany tells me. “Our husbands are now tearing down a house to get the steel in there and sell it because we don’t have any money and they can’t go to work.”

“I volunteered in the 1973 War for this country and this is what I get back,” complains one man who refused to give his name.

While Rashwan talks about logistics and documentation, dozens have fallen between the cracks. At press time, he promised to look at their cases with a “human eye” and told me a decision would be made within a few days.

As my photographer and I start to leave, we are stopped in our tracks by the wails of an old lady. Stranded in her house and suffering diabetes and kidney failure, Karima Shehata, cries out loud: “My brother took the flat and denied me the right to it. I have been here for 35 years and I have raised my brothers and kids. La Ilah Ela Allah, ya rab ostorna ya rab.” (There is no god but God, Oh Lord, shelter us.)