As many as 50,000 homeless youth overrun Cairo
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Pastor Dale Morgan
Feb 23, 2011, 1:16:20 AM2/23/11
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As many as 50,000 homeless youth overrun Cairo
By Alice Fordham Special for USA TODAY
CAIRO — Muhammad says he is 9 years old. His skinny body looks younger, and he walks like a boy twice his age as he strides along the filthy streets of the Saida Zeinab district in central Cairo.
"I've never been to school," he says, pulling up his dirty yellow shirt to blow his nose, revealing jeans with no zipper. "I'm on the streets. Sometimes I sleep on the streets, because I have to get money."
He begs, washes cars and, if he is like most street children here, makes a living as a petty thief, according to aid organizations. He is among thousands of poor and neglected children homeless in the city, say aid organizations such as Save the Children.
Swaggering alongside him is Mahmoud, who says he is 14, and has been on the streets six years since his father's beatings drove him from home. Both he and Muhammad ask that their last names not be published because they worry they will be grabbed by police and placed in homes where they might be abused.
Always outside, they were vulnerable to getting caught up in the sometimes-violent protests that ended in the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.
"There were so many people," Mahmoud says. "I was fired on. There were bullets that scratched me."
At least one homeless boy — Ismail Yassin, 16 — was killed in the riots, and many were injured, according to hospitals. Many of the street children interviewed said they were paid by the Cairo police to throw stones and Molotov cocktails at protesters.
Even so, most hoped for change.
"I want a new president who can be kind with us, and feel the suffering of the people," Mahmoud says.
Jane Gibreel, country director of Save the Children, says there may be as many as 50,000 street children in Cairo. "It's impossible to say for sure," she says. "They leave home because of violence or neglect or because they don't have enough to eat. They are often drawn from very poor areas."
Muhammad and Mahmoud walk past a police station that had been torched and gutted in the riots. They say they had both been detained and beaten by the police many times because their parents never registered them and so they do not have Egyptian identification cards.
Without identification, they cannot go to school, work or get access to health care, and police can arrest them anytime.
Poverty soared in the last years of the Mubarak regime, as inflation levels rose as high as 30% but salaries stayed the same. Lines for subsidized bread became a common sight.
As belts tightened, fewer families could afford the $10 a year for their children to attend school, or pay for notebooks and uniforms. In the vast slums where hundreds of thousands of the poorest live on the outskirts of Cairo, children help their families by selling trinkets to drivers, or by begging and stealing.
Save the Children supports three centers in Cairo, but Ahmed Ibrahim, from the Egyptian Association for Social Development, says it must be the new government that makes a difference to these children.
"They need to enhance the care institutions, so that children can be happy there, and not run away. This is a big problem," he says.
Boys who grow up to be young men on the streets often to turn to drugs and have little future, advocates for the poor say.
A group of older boys and young men, some of whom had been smoking hashish, stand around like a warning of Muhammad and Mahmoud's future, which is likely to be one of gang violence and drug abuse.
Ahmed, 19, is among the group. He says people protested to get better benefits from the state for themselves.
"I never saw them asking for houses for the poor people," he says.
His friend Karim, who doesn't know his age but who has been on the streets 11 years, says Egypt was an unjust society.
"I can sing. I can draw. I can read and write," he says, ticking off his talents. Neither boy wanted his last name used.
Karim sits down on a dirty bench in a trash-strewn bus shelter and sings a lilting song: "A long time ago, there was comfort. There were hearts that could feel with me. There was safety and kindness, and their hands could sweep the tears from my eyes."
His voice is hoarse and sweet but not loud enough for anyone to hear it over the hollering crowds and traffic. People walk briskly by.
"They were very close to me, but our hearts are now alone with the past. Where are we going, you and I?" he sings.
As many as 50,000 homeless youth overrun Cairo
By Alice Fordham Special for USA TODAY
CAIRO — Muhammad says he is 9 years old. His skinny body looks younger, and he walks like a boy twice his age as he strides along the filthy streets of the Saida Zeinab district in central Cairo.
"I've never been to school," he says, pulling up his dirty yellow shirt to blow his nose, revealing jeans with no zipper. "I'm on the streets. Sometimes I sleep on the streets, because I have to get money."
He begs, washes cars and, if he is like most street children here, makes a living as a petty thief, according to aid organizations. He is among thousands of poor and neglected children homeless in the city, say aid organizations such as Save the Children.
Swaggering alongside him is Mahmoud, who says he is 14, and has been on the streets six years since his father's beatings drove him from home. Both he and Muhammad ask that their last names not be published because they worry they will be grabbed by police and placed in homes where they might be abused.
Always outside, they were vulnerable to getting caught up in the sometimes-violent protests that ended in the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.
"There were so many people," Mahmoud says. "I was fired on. There were bullets that scratched me."
At least one homeless boy — Ismail Yassin, 16 — was killed in the riots, and many were injured, according to hospitals. Many of the street children interviewed said they were paid by the Cairo police to throw stones and Molotov cocktails at protesters.
Even so, most hoped for change.
"I want a new president who can be kind with us, and feel the suffering of the people," Mahmoud says.
Jane Gibreel, country director of Save the Children, says there may be as many as 50,000 street children in Cairo. "It's impossible to say for sure," she says. "They leave home because of violence or neglect or because they don't have enough to eat. They are often drawn from very poor areas."
Muhammad and Mahmoud walk past a police station that had been torched and gutted in the riots. They say they had both been detained and beaten by the police many times because their parents never registered them and so they do not have Egyptian identification cards.
Without identification, they cannot go to school, work or get access to health care, and police can arrest them anytime.
Poverty soared in the last years of the Mubarak regime, as inflation levels rose as high as 30% but salaries stayed the same. Lines for subsidized bread became a common sight.
As belts tightened, fewer families could afford the $10 a year for their children to attend school, or pay for notebooks and uniforms. In the vast slums where hundreds of thousands of the poorest live on the outskirts of Cairo, children help their families by selling trinkets to drivers, or by begging and stealing.
Save the Children supports three centers in Cairo, but Ahmed Ibrahim, from the Egyptian Association for Social Development, says it must be the new government that makes a difference to these children.
"They need to enhance the care institutions, so that children can be happy there, and not run away. This is a big problem," he says.
Boys who grow up to be young men on the streets often to turn to drugs and have little future, advocates for the poor say.
A group of older boys and young men, some of whom had been smoking hashish, stand around like a warning of Muhammad and Mahmoud's future, which is likely to be one of gang violence and drug abuse.
Ahmed, 19, is among the group. He says people protested to get better benefits from the state for themselves.
"I never saw them asking for houses for the poor people," he says.
His friend Karim, who doesn't know his age but who has been on the streets 11 years, says Egypt was an unjust society.
"I can sing. I can draw. I can read and write," he says, ticking off his talents. Neither boy wanted his last name used.
Karim sits down on a dirty bench in a trash-strewn bus shelter and sings a lilting song: "A long time ago, there was comfort. There were hearts that could feel with me. There was safety and kindness, and their hands could sweep the tears from my eyes."
His voice is hoarse and sweet but not loud enough for anyone to hear it over the hollering crowds and traffic. People walk briskly by.
"They were very close to me, but our hearts are now alone with the past. Where are we going, you and I?" he sings.
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