Villagers in the vicinity of Mallawy city of southern Minya governorate have accused the local council of dumping around 250,000 tons of garbage on the Nile Bank. The local council, however, claimed it dumped the garbage to fill up a marsh even though, the villagers say, there is a recycling factory nearby. The garbage has led to the spread of foul odors and has damaged 40,000 feddans of agricultural land, according to the villagers. Minya Governor Ahmed Diaa Eddin had previously decided to have piles of garbage removed from the southern parts of the city and be replaced with gardens and courts. Residents of the villages were surprised however to see the garbage transported to where they live. "Several weeks ago, the local council trucks dumped garbage on the Nile Bank..over 20 hours, the trucks had made more than 1000 rounds to dump garbage," Ahmed Mahmoud, a resident of one of Mallawy's villages told Al-Masry Al-Youm. He added that the dumpings caused massive mountains of animal excreta and rotten wastes which have left some residents with chest diseases. "The offensive odors make it seem like walking between dead bodies," he added, explaining that villagers now find it difficult to go to the city because they have to pass between those piles of garbage. Riad Abdel Sattar, a Mallawy's MP, called for relocating the garbage to other dumps or building sanitary dumps. Meanwhile, Salah Eddin Mohamed Kamel, head of the Mallway local council, said that the garbage was relocated to create gardens, build courts and houses in the area from which it was lifted. Kamel added that the garbage was dumped in a 35,000-feddan marsh in order to fill it up. That marsh, Kamel explained, was put up for a tender to build tourist projects. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
