Sunday, April 20, 2014

#SaveFustat : The Landfill started already

The Cairo governorate and Arab Contractors started to landfill with sands one of the important sites in El-Fustat area. Here are photos showing the progress in the site from Egypt’s heritage task force Facebook Page and El Basara Facebook Page.
Again here is a post for the excavation works in the site. As far as I know this site was being excavated by a French archaeological mission in Egypt. Supposedly the mission is in a holiday now !! I do not know if they know about this disaster taking place or not but they have to speak up.
The excavation works "Omneya Abdel Barr"

The excavation works "Omneya Abdel Barr"
Amazingly we got leaked documents from the ministry of antiquities showing correspondences and memos from the Islamic antiquities sector to the ministry stating what happened to the site and how the Cairo governorate and Arab Contractors are taking over it. The memos show that that the officials in the site were worried on how the governorate was planning to turn this site in to a garden and how the irrigation system will destroy the monuments there.
According to the leaks the Arab Contractors and Cairo governorate began their move late last March.
It seems to me that there was a fight over land.
Already another leaked document from 2012 says that that site would turned in to a parking lot !! I do not know what to say.

Now my dear reader you should know that that this site is inside "El-Fustat" area which is considered by the UNSEC as the World Heritage site. Do not ask where the UNESCO is from all this because I do not know.
Despite I knew that the Islamic officials and archaeologists working in the site are extremely angry and actually reporting this disaster to the administrative prosecution, I found that the head of the Islamic antiquities sector in the ministry of antiquities did not care that much regarding that site because he cared more for the warehouses of the ministry near the site !!
Needless to say I imagine that those warehouses were looted from long time ago considering the security situation in this area !!!
I feel that the officials in the ministry of antiquities got a problem when it comes to priorities. The site is not less important than the warehouses for God sake !!
Amazingly the guy is saying that the site is owned by the ministry of antiquities where is a big sign now there stating clearly that it is owned by Cairo governorate.
This land is owned by Cairo governorate "Sally Soliman"
I hope that our TV hosts raise the matter along with the journalists in Arabic. There is an online petition asking the interim president to interfere to stop the aggression against the site. I know that online petitions are somehow useless in Egypt but at least we are trying every possible way.
 Here are also videos showing the site after the landfill. It is just sad.

Side remark :

Interestingly the name of the Civilization Museum pops up when you do a
The Civilization Museum is supposedly to be inaugurated soon according to the official statements but there are financial problems. The museum's construction started in 2004 and up till now its inauguration is halted.
The last news related to this museum which will exhibit not less 10,000 antiquities is that the UNESCO and the ministry of antiquities may launch an international donation campaign to collect the rest of the money need to inaugurate and operate that huge museum.
Not less LE 700 million were already spent on the museum project since the beginning of the project in 2004 and yet it has not been inaugurated yet. Who is responsible for this delay and why is there a delay in inauguration !? Who is responsible for wasting all those millions in a country in need like Egypt !? Questions should be asked but I am afraid we won’t get any answer for anytime soon !!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank You for your comment
Please keep it civilized here, racist and hateful comments are not accepted
The Comments in this blog with exclusion of the blog's owner does not represent the views of the blog's owner.