Cairo-

Just one week before the tragedy of the Moroccan child Rayan, which grabbed the hearts and eyes of the world, another similar tragedy had occurred in the suburb of Al-Masara near the city of Helwan (south of Cairo), but perhaps in a more cruel and painful way, and without any global or even local noise .

The painful story began when the security services in Egypt received a report from a housewife stating that her 7-year-old child had been absent.

According to what was published by the Egyptian media, the search efforts carried out by the police authorities concluded that the child had fallen into an open sewage drain, which is similar to the well into which the child Rayan Al-Maghribi fell.

In the end, the competent authorities - with the help of a diver and rescue tools - were able to retrieve the child's body, but it was too late, as he breathed his last inside the drain.

And the accident - despite its cruelty and bitterness - did not cause media noise in Egypt, as it has become as frequent as road accidents, and was preceded by dozens of similar accidents, according to what Egyptian newspapers published, including the death of a 10-year-old child in the city of Salam on the outskirts of Cairo, after He fell into a sewer while going to buy some school supplies.

While humanity stood on tiptoe calling for the Moroccan child Rayan to escape death, the situation was different, as no one seemed to have moved a finger inside or outside Egypt towards similar tragedies, which - to be repeated - resembled an open show in the cities of Egypt.

after ryan

It was remarkable that the incident of the death of the Moroccan child Rayan had moved many governments to review the conditions of their infrastructure, as Saudi Arabia, for example, announced the start of filling in thousands of open, abandoned and neglected wells, and similar statements were issued from other Gulf countries as well as Jordan, in addition to Morocco’s decision to fill in All open wells are similar to the well in which Ryan fell.

In Egypt, local officials announced that they would respond with full force to thieves and scrap dealers, who steal the iron that makes up the sewage drain covers, which leads to turning them into open wells and a death catcher, especially for children, according to Muhammad Homs, head of the city of Matariya in Dakahlia Governorate. .

Akhbar Al-Youm (government) newspaper quoted Homs as saying that his city, like other cities, witnesses the theft of the lids of the cesspools from those who work in collecting scrap (old items, especially made of iron and other metals) in order to sell them.

Theft of 12,000 manhole covers

Homs was not the only official who attributed the main reason for turning sewage drains into a trap for the death of children to the phenomenon of stealing sewer covers and selling their iron to scrap dealers.

According to an official statistic issued by the Holding Company for Drinking Water and Sanitation and published by Al-Dustour newspaper (close to the authority), 12,000 drain caps were stolen nationwide in just 3 months of 2019. While Alexandria came in second place, followed by Giza.

The company's statement indicated that 6,000 additional manhole covers are manufactured annually, to compensate for what is stolen only in Cairo.

The government company’s statement pointed out that the cost of the manhole cover ranges between 3 and 4 thousand pounds, adding that the value of losses in Cairo alone is estimated at 25 million pounds annually, due to the theft of manhole covers.

Good life initiative

Regarding the steps taken by the authorities to eliminate the child death traps spread in the streets of Cairo and the governorates, a parliamentary source in the Local Administration Committee in the House of Representatives said that "neglect is the main cause of the catastrophe of children falling into sewage drains."

The source added that "half of the budget of the Dignified Life Initiative - announced by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi last year - which amounts to 40 billion dollars, will go to sanitation."

According to Egyptian newspapers and websites, the budget for drinking water and sewage in the state's general budget has reached an unprecedented figure of 33 billion pounds.

On how to deal with the accident of a child falling into a sewage cesspool, a civil protection source said, “The rescue teams go to the place of the report, accompanied by equipment, supplies and medical staff, and then begin to evaluate the situation and may sometimes have to seek the assistance of the armed forces in the incidents of children or adults falling into sewage cesspools. health, especially in difficult cases.

But the unfortunate - according to the civil protection worker - is that "the vast majority of those who fall into the sewers are exhumed as bodies, not alive," stressing the need to monitor the manhole covers and to intensify the punishment for contractors who implement unsafe sewers.

painful scenes

"A horrific scene that I cannot forget when I watched a video clip of the exhumation of the body of a child who fell into a sewage cesspool in the city of Al-Masara." This is how citizen Muhammad Suleiman commented on the issue of children falling into sewage sewage, and added, "I can't imagine what his parents will be like when their son returns to them as a dead body." I am not his father, and I did not witness the situation in person, but when I watched the video, I felt that I would die of grief for this innocent child.”

Suleiman pointed out that the whole world shook his conscience and his humanity rose up because of the case of the child Rayan, but he did not see and did not see how much Rayan died in Egypt in sewage wells, concluding that he blames the Egyptian media for its interest in trivial issues, and left one of the most serious issues, which is the issue of the death of children in sewage sinks;