Headhunters

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The bomb-maker had his workshop in Manshiet Nasser, a vast slum that was home to almost half a million people. The locals called it Garbage City because the men and women who made their home there collected trash from the rest of Cairo and brought it back to be sorted, in the hope that they might find pieces to resell. Small children picked through the garbage all day, as did their mothers. Tens of thousands of people were crammed into rooms that were too small for them, in housing blocks that were in dire need of repair. It was a dour, joyless existence.

Ezbet Bekhit was a typical neighbourhood of Garbage City. Families survived on less than fifty dollars a month. Cooking and hygiene facilities were lacking. There was no electricity and very little drinkable water. It was a desperate place, poverty pressing down on it with a heavy hand, but, somehow, its loud and hectic spirit remained undaunted.

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