Cairo (AFP)

In the immense historic necropolis of Cairo, construction barriers barely veil the rubble of demolished mausoleums to make way for the controversial new road to al-Ferdaous, literally "paradise", revealing here and there some still intact burials .

In order to link two major axes of the megalopolis, the Egyptian authorities have been carrying out demolitions since mid-July, but also evictions of precarious inhabitants, in the City of the Dead, the oldest necropolis in the Muslim world, listed as a World Heritage site. of Unesco.

Last home of illustrious personalities but also of ordinary citizens, the necropolis is full of sumptuous vaults, represented by orientalist painters and described by historians over the centuries.

If the destruction is currently confined to buildings dating from the early twentieth, they have however "reached the protection perimeter (200 meters)" of older funeral complexes and are rife "in the immediate vicinity of the vault of Sultan Quansoua Abou Said (15th century) ", listed monument, according to town planner and researcher Galila el-Kadi.

The cemetery, which "pre-exists" to the city as it was founded in the 7th century by the Fatimid dynasty, is "an important component" of Cairo and the demolitions result in a "loss of its visual identity and its memory" , warns the researcher.

- "Bulldozer policy" -

The authorities defended themselves from damaging the heritage, disqualifying the historical and architectural value of the destroyed buildings.

"There was no destruction of monuments", only "contemporary tombs", assures the Ministry of Antiquities.

Contacted by AFP, Unesco affirms "to have been neither informed nor consulted" and "to follow the file with the Egyptian authorities (...) to assess the consequences on the exceptional universal interest, the authenticity and the 'integrity' of the site.

For Ms. Kadi, this situation reveals the "blind and arbitrary" character of the urban planning method applied in Cairo, a "bulldozer policy".

The construction of al-Ferdaous - connecting the October 6 bridge to the Tantaoui highway - constitutes yet another episode in the soap opera of the transfer of the centers of power to the new administrative capital, a vast project orchestrated by the army in the middle of the desert , 45 kilometers to the east.

This megaproject, intended to host national and foreign institutions from the end of 2020, is presented as a symbol of the authoritarian power of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, elected in 2014, a few months after having dismissed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.

To connect residential districts to the new seat of power, interchanges have multiplied, destroying decades, even centuries of urban history and often inconveniencing residents.

Among the latest outcry, the construction of a highway bridge licking buildings in Giza, a district that encompasses the entire west of the capital.

- "Living and deceased manhandled" -

On Twitter, the images of the construction site arouse the emotion of many Internet users. One of them - @morocropolis -, whose maternal family has had a vault in Quansoua Street since the 1940s, denounces a botched implementation, on condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisals.

"They had told us that they needed part of the women's burial chamber but they started to destroy the fence and the tombstones before the remains were moved," he said. According to him, his family will not benefit from any compensation because his vault "will not be completely destroyed".

But the Cairo necropolis is also home to living people, for several centuries, informal and modest inhabitants, who have suffered from the project.

"We were caught off guard. The bulldozer suddenly hit the wall and we found ourselves throwing our things (outside) like crazy (...) They put us on the street", confides under cover of anonymity the wife of a mausoleum guard, in the middle of the rubble.

This mother of three lived with her family in the family vault of a notable at the beginning of the 20th century, which has now been largely destroyed. In the absence of an alternative, they are currently living with neighbors whose homes have been preserved.

"It was awful: we moved the dead on straw rugs," said the thirty-something, who is part of the third generation of inhabitants of the City of the Dead.

"They abuse the living and the dead, without mercy. (...) And in the end, no one cares about us."

© 2020 AFP