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Life in the Mountain’s Bosom by Mohamed Ali Eddin

Mohamed Ali eddin 9 September 2012 1 دقيقة قراءة

Reports from the government-affiliated Information and Decision Support Center as well as NGOs say that Upper Egypt’s Minya has some 334 quarries, where 15,000 workers are employed. Most of them are farmers or fresh graduates suffering from unemployment. Work in the quarries is like a parallel world that Cairo is unaware of. There, workers risk losing their limbs everyday, and even die without anyone filing an official complaint with the police to determine the reason behind their death. This is life in the bosom of the mountains.

According to many NGOs, the number of quarry workers may not be accurate due to the large number of unlicensed quarries that employ thousands of workers illegally, including children under the age of 16.

Minya quarries attract a lot of residents since their workers receive a daily wage between LE50 and LE100, a high amount compared to that of farmers, carpenters and auto repair workers.

During Upper Egypt’s bitterly cold winters, workers who climb the mountain have no other means for heating except lighting fires, as thousands of them gather on the road leading to the quarry from 3 am until sunrise.

Ahmed Abdel Aal displays the injury he suffered while working at the quarry. Although Abdel Aal’s injury needed about 20 stitches and he had to rest for three weeks at home, he still called it, like other quarry workers, a “small wound.” For workers, the term “injury” means amputation.

This is the most dangerous tool used in Minya quarries. It is unsafely located in an electric machine used to cut blocks of limestone. If it separates from the machine suddenly, which happens often, the tool can injure or kill a worker. The workers call it the “reaper of lives.”

A study prepared by Assiut University shows that north Minya quarry workers’ exposure to asbestosis through the inhalation of dust containing silica is higher than allowable rates.

Try to guess the age of this person. He is not a young man who came to work in the quarry; he is an 8-year-old child. (I asked many workers about their ages, expecting them to be in their 30s because of the wrinkles on their faces. To my surprise, the majority were in their 20s.)

A worker loading a vehicle with stones to be transferred from the quarry.

Electricity in the quarry area is the second most common cause of workers’ death. They often die of electric shock after touching an exposed wire. No ambulances reach this area and there are no hospitals in the eastern Nile region aside from one small private hospital. Workers say the hospital owner has agreed with the quarry owner not to file official complaints with the police about injuries that occur at the quarry. Workers also agree not to file official reports over the incidents, and in return the quarry owner pays for their treatment.

The Wadi El Nil Association for Protection of Quarry Workers tried to run a quarry where workers would get safer equipment and receive medical tests on a periodic basis, but the project failed due to financial constraints

#mining #Minya

عن الكاتب

Mohamed Ali eddin

freelance photojournalist who interests in human rights and workers’ issues. Most of his photo stories reflect the life outside Cairo where people suffer from lack of public service. And for…

كل مقالات Mohamed Ali eddin ←

بانوراما أخرى

#mining

Video | 2 years after the mineral resources law was passed: Quarry workers in Minya between arrests and absent security

The law imposes penalties for extracting raw materials without a licence, which is harder to obtain

Mostafa Darwish January 23, 2018 1 دقيقة قراءة

#brick workers

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With Egypt ranked the third deadliest country for journalists worldwide, making journalism an increasingly dangerous profession, it is not amongst the country’s deadliest occupations. Egypt’s most hazardous and life-threatening…

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Protests, arrests in Minya village point to longstanding discriminatory policies over church permits

Over two days in late January, dozens of Coptic Christian residents of the village of Ezbet Farag Allah in Minya staged a demonstration in front of the Diocese of Samalut…

Mohamed Ezz February 10, 2022 5 دقيقة قراءة

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