EGYPT-RIVER-NILE-HERITAGE-CULTURE-HOUSEBOATS

This picture taken on June 27, 2022 from the Giza side of the Nile river shows one of the houseboats moored along the Giza bank in the Agouza district, days before its expected removal as part of a wider decree to clear all of the river's banks in the area. - Urban reprieve for some, life savings for others, around thirty Nile of the houseboats, known as "awamat" (floating), are slated for demolition in Cairo, with residents claiming the state is sacrificing heritage for profit. A campaign to save the houseboats has been launched online, with a petition garnering more than 4,000 signatures. The vessels hold cultural weight even beyond the Nile, cemented in Arab cinema as the sight where Abdel Halim Hafez crooned in 1955's 'Ayam w Layali' (Days and Nights) and the setting for the titular chitchat in 1971's 'Tharthara fawq al-Neel' (Chitchat on the Nile), based on the novel by Nobel Prize-winning Naguib Mahfouz. (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP) (Photo by KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images)