Zabaleen

Cairo’s (largely) Christian garbage collectors, whose livelihood has been threatened recently by the Egyptian government’s decision to slaughter their pigs.

Reporting recently for the BBC, Christian Fraser revealed the impact of measures aimed at curbing H1N1 on Cairo’s Zabaleen (“garbage people”):

The Zabaleen are an Egyptian community of mainly Coptic Christians – vital to Cairo’s refuse collection. Around 85 percent of the rubbish they retrieve is sorted, recycled and resold. Tin, paper, glass – even bones are recycled for glue. …

But this is a fragile existence in which … pigs played a crucial role.

Each month they troughed their way through 6,000 tonnes of rotting food collected on the rounds.

The fattened pigs were sold to supplement the income of the Zabaleen.

According to Fraser:

As the H1N1 pandemic spread around the globe, Cairo was infected with outbreaks of panic and hysteria. The majority Muslim parliament voted to slaughter the entire pig population – 350,000 animals – even though they were not infected.

One Zabaleen, Magdi Mosaad, told Fraser that selling the pork from his pigs was an essential source of income:

“I sold pigs twice a year. To pay for mending the car and the school fees for our three young children. There is no way I can replace that income.”

Additionally, a doctor told Fraser that he is seeing incidences of malnutrition and anaemia in Zabaleen children, as a result of the loss of their only affordable source of animal protein – pork.