Rescue operations in Dweiqa have ended amid fears that bodies might still be trapped beneath the rubble, reports Mohamed El-Sayed Rescue operations in Ezbet Bekheit in Dweiqa, where a devastating landslide crushed houses on 6 September leaving 92 dead and 72 injured, ended on Monday. The previous day rescue teams had recovered four bodies from the rubble. Yet residents of the area believe that tens of bodies have yet to be recovered. "There are still lots of corpses beneath the rubble. It's going to be a mass grave," Ibrahim Mustafa, a resident of the area, told Al-Ahram Weekly. When the authorities announced an end to rescue operations angry residents threw stones at officials and the entire district was cordoned off by riot police in response. Relatives of victims are scathing about the way the relief operation was conducted. "Every time they recovered a body they would ask hundreds of relatives to go to Zeinhom Morgue to see whether they could identify the corpse. We spent the entire day moving between the site of the disaster in Ezbet Bekheit, the morgues and the evacuees camp in Al-Fustat," one resident complained. Hundreds of secret police and state security personnel spread across the area to prevent demonstrations and stop non-government media from conducting interviews or taking pictures, the ban a response to harsh criticism levelled at the government by independent and foreign media outlets in the first days of the disaster. Discontent among residents is not limited to the conduct of the rescue. "I was ordered to leave my house and told I would get a new one in the nearby Suzanne Mubarak Housing project. Then I was told that I was not eligible," says Fouad Hassanein. He is now sleeping in the street adjacent to his evacuated house. Many of those now homeless staged a demonstration on Sunday in front of Cairo City Hall, demanding that the governor of Cairo, Abdel-Azim Wazir, take action to end their dilemma. Others demonstrated in front of the headquarters of the Manshiet Nasser district, to which Ezbet Bekheit belongs. Demonstrators threatened to build new houses over the debris of destroyed homes should the authorities fail to provide them with flats. The Egyptian Red Crescent, headed by Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, held a meeting on Thursday to finalise plans to help the devastated families. "I promise the afflicted families that we will solve their problems within days in cooperation with other [government] agencies," said Mrs Mubarak. "I will personally take responsibility for finding a home for each family that deserves to have one... I hope that some [residents] don't capitalise on the situation by dishonestly claiming that they are victims of the catastrophe." Mrs Mubarak stressed that 2,000 residential units were ready for families, and 3,000 more are due to be completed in the last phase of the Suzanne Mubarak Compound. Victims of the landslide joined members of the Egyptian Movement for Change and other human rights activists in a protest on the steps of the Press Syndicate's headquarters. They called for the dismissal of Minister of Housing Ahmed El-Maghrabi and Governor of Cairo Wazir.
