CAIRO -- Homeless people and knife-wielding thugs, who broke into tens of thousands of low-cost and expensive housing units across the country in January and February, are refusing to leave them. The extraordinary invasion began when the police mysteriously disappeared from the streets on January 28. The illegally occupied housing units had been closed by their owners or tenants for various reasons. The occupiers are stubbornly refusing to leave, even after being informed that the Army and the police are preparing to shift the battlefront from Al Tahrir Square to these housing units, although no-one is yet sure when this will happen. One of the landlords of these homes, wealthy businessman Naguib Sawiris, appears to be more fortunate than the others: as early as late January, soldiers managed to evict the squatters from his expensive Haram City residential area in 6 October City. Construction companies and landlords generally find out that the squatters have moved in, when the neighbours or local officials ring them. “These thugs turn up in large numbers, wielding knives, sticks and iron bars, and force their way into our apartments,” says Saeed Ali, a father of two small children. Two flats he'd bought in a high rise in Al-Moqattam for them to live in when they grow up and get married were seized by these criminals. Meanwhile, in el-Minya City, Upper Egypt, tens of newly built skyscrapers were invaded by thugs, who were pre- pared to kill anyone who got in their way. “These criminals have also occupied low-cost housing units built for poor families, whose previous homes had collapsed. We watched these thieves break down the doors and move their furniture in,” says a horrified eyewitness. There was a similar incident in the Delta Governorate of el-Gharbiya, where criminals moved into 300 housing units built by the Government to be sold cheaply to young, limited-income couples preparing to get married. In el-Qaliubia Governorate in the Delta, 400 apartments in new housing projects belonging to the Ministry of Waqfs (Religious Endowments) were also seized. These thugs went into action just as soon as the police vanished from the streets of Egypt. Some of them have even had the cheek to pose as landlords and rent out these flats to unsuspecting couples. Admittedly, the tenants pay less than they would have under Mubarak's regime. Unsurprisingly, most of such violations have been happening in the capital. But some families don't want soldiers and policemen to round up these criminals. These families were, before the revolution, living in flats that were falling apart, paying a lot of rent to greedy landlords. They complained to the Government, which did nothing to help them. But now they've moved into nice new flats, ‘liberated' by the thugs, who are only charging them LE100 or less in rent per month. “It's great. Our lifelong dream has been fulfilled,” says one such tenant, who works as an assistant in a downtown store in Cairo and earns very little.
