Egyptians exhume the dead as historic cemetery razed

"Death itself is a tragedy. Here, you are reliving that tragedy all over again," said the 43-year-old, who had 23 relatives in total removed from their family tomb, located in a sprawling cemetery known as the City of the Dead in Old Cairo. Since 2020, thousands of graves have been demolished at the UNESCO-listed World Heritage site, one of the oldest necropolises in the Muslim world. It is the latest piece of Cairo's history to be torn apart as authorities aggressively remake parts of the city, a longtime cultural beacon of the Arab world.