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Qursaya Island, Giza, 10 January 2013
Qursaya Island residents: 13 years of struggle
Ahmed Aly, Qursaya island resident
Taking this ferry is the only way to get to the island.
It works 24 hours of the day.
The attendant on the ferry knows
almost everybody who lives on the island.
Fatimah Abdallah, a resident of the island
We don’t make much money from growing the land.
We did not make money from growing
the two feddans we have.
Mohamed Abla, plastic artist
I’ve been living on the island for 15 years.
The residents here are my people.
We grew up to find our parents
and grandparents living here.
This is state-owned land
but we have a usufruct arrangement with authorities
and bodies that own this land.
In 2000, a group of investors wanted
to take more than one third of the island.
Ministerial decree 484/2001 ordered
the legalization of the status of the residents.
In 2007, the army stormed the island
and when we resisted them, they arrested
some people, including my uncles and neighbors.
They said those who had contracts would have
their plots of land registered.
But those residents disappeared for 48 hours
and then came back at dawn and said that the army
left them on the Cairo-Suez Road
and forced them to sign documents
to give up the land.
On 18 November 2011,
a big army force of around 2000 officers
stormed the island at dawn
and started firing at the people.
Some people were injured and others killed.
They burned the sesame produce.
I’ll show it to you inside.
They terrorized us.
They arrested the fishermen
who were at work, including my brother,
cousin, nephew and brother-in-law.
They arrested 25 people
aged between 18 and 60.
On the same day, they were referred
to the military prosecution and charged
with encroaching on military-owned land.
When the army stormed the island
for the first time in 2007, we resisted
the army and defended the land.
It felt like defending our entire homeland
because we did not know who was behind
the attack due to the corruption in the country.
But it is very painful to see this happen after
the 25 January revolution.
We’d rather die than leave here.
They want to kick us out
and make us live in the mountains.