PM orders establishment of new urban community in Warraq

CAIRO – 4 June 2018: Prime Minister Sharif Ismail ordered on Sunday the establishment of a new urban community in Giza’s Al-Warraq island after several months of controversy over rumored evacuation of the island residents for investment projects.

The new urban community will be affiliated to the New Urban Communities Authority (NUCA), in which the authority will be entitled to exercise all the powers vested in it in regard with the lands supervised by the NUCA.

In July 2017, the government launched a campaign that aimed to restore state-owned lands in Al-Warraq. In press statements, the Cabinet said the campaign was targeting urban violators and non-populated buildings on the island. However, clashes erupted between some people and security forces on the island, leaving a civilian killed and dozens of policemen and citizens injured.

The government has denied rumors of evacuation of Warraq residents for investment projects and cutting off water and facilities from the island, noting that it will remove only the encroachments on the country’s land.

The security forces directed to the island to demolish the uninhabited and allegedly illegal buildings were instructed not to remove inhabited buildings and agricultural lands.

Al-Warraq is the biggest island in Egypt’s Nile, located in the Warraq district of Giza, and is home to 60,000 residents that depend mainly on agriculture and fishing for living. Its residents suffer from the absence of sewage networks, facilities and hospitals, as well as water pollution.

After President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi held a conference entitled “Removing encroachments on the country’s properties”, Ismail ordered the government to prioritize reclaiming state-owned land from squatters causing a crisis in Al-Warraq.

However, its residents claimed that they have their rights to live on the island, providing documents to Ismail to prove that they are owners of the land, not squatters.

Additional Reporting by Amr Mohamed Kandil