With mountains of rubbish towering over children and endless bin bags bulging from high-rise flats, these are the shocking images that show Cairo’s ‘Garbage City’ – where thousands of Egyptians live amongst piles of stinking rubbish.
Manshiyat naser, or Garbage city, as it is known by locals, is a slum on the outskirts of Cairo, just a short drive away from luxury five star resorts.
But these shocking photos show a whole community which has been living in the slums for hundreds of years surrounded by rats and rotting rubbish.
Photographer Ilya Stepanov took the pictures to document the lives of the Zabbaleens – a people who have been living among rubbish, and making a living out of recycling it, for generations.
One image shows huge piles of bagged rubbish stacked high in the streets, with most of the piles twice the size of the helpless children stood nearby.
[More]
I’ve personally travelled through those Cairo slums. I don’t know if I was exactly in the area referred to as ‘Garbage City’ but where ever I was it resembled the conditions I’ve seen in photographs of the inside of refugee camps. Evidence everywhere of no shortage of money for military equipment (tanks, anti-aircraft guns, trucks and lots of soldiers) but none to spare for people.
Looks like Toronto when the garbagemen went on strike.