How millions make a life in the City of the Dead

THE line of washing, barely moving in the gentle autumn breeze, hangs across the tightly packed tombs and mausoleums in the vast el-Arafa necropolis on the outskirts of Cairo. 

A plate of pita bread, days past its best, sits on a wooden bench swollen with the weather, as a handful of children play among the graves, kicking up the dust as they chase tiny grey and white kittens darting between the rows.

This is Cairo's City of the Dead, home to an estimated 4 million people, eking out an existence in a cemetery spanning more than six kilometres. Many were born here, others are refugees from Egypt's deeply felt housing crisis who travelled to the capital looking for work that never materialised. They are part of the 40 per cent of Egyptians who live below the poverty line - huge numbers in a country of more than 80 million people.     Full Read