The steaming sands of El-Alamein, where German and Allied tanks fought fiercely during World War II, are being readied for a boom in tourism, but only once the landmines are cleared.
The potentially lucrative tourism industry on Egypt’s north coast is being cautiously developed on one of the most heavily mined bits of real estate in the world.
“We are going to create a space for peace on this war zone,” said engineer George Zaki, showing off the verdant man-made hill of the soon-to-be golf course and the spaces allocated for the resort’s luxury villas.
But more than half a century after the battles between Allied and Axis troops in the North African desert, mines still pose a threat to local Bedouin residents and a challenge to both tourism and oil exploration.
When construction of the golf resort first began, a bulldozer barely missed an unexploded mine, buried 50cm deep in the rocky soil, requiring an intervention by the Egyptian army.
While there are no accurate figures for the number of mines and unexploded ordnance left by the warring parties, Egypt says there are at least 20-million landmines buried in the area of over 3 000 square kilometres.
“Egypt is the country the most affected by this curse,” said El-Alamein’s mayor, former army general Mustafa Abada. “We will never be able to beat it without the help of the countries who caused it and the United Nations.”
There are very few signposts to warn against the munitions, Abada says, because whatever wartime maps are still available are hardly helpful, the mines having moved due to erosion and rain.
According to the mayor, “the worst ones are the Riegel mines placed by [German Field Marshal Erwin] Rommel as he was fleeing to Libya” after Allied forces, led by Britain’s General Montgomery, broke the Axis line in October 1942.
The battle that eventually saw the defeat of Rommel’s Afrika Korps effectively ended the Nazis’ hopes of capturing the Suez Canal and Middle Eastern oil fields, marking a significant turning point in the war.
The absence of natural barriers in the desert led the British and German armies to fortify their positions by sowing an unprecedented number of mines during the protracted stand-off that preceded the battle.
Accidents caused by unexploded ordnance are still frequent in the region.
Since 1945, 700 people have been killed and more than 8 000 mutilated by anti-personnel or anti-tank mines, according to the latest official figures.
“Here, no family has been spared. There is a constant fear of landing on a mine,” said Abdel Moneim Waher, a 33-year-old Bedouin, who had the fingers of his left hand blown off after picking up a mine.
He was just 11 years old when he reached for the “shiny object” while herding sheep, unaware of the danger.
“I received no compensation. The government is definitely more interested in cleaning up the mine areas for touristic and petroleum projects, rather than for the Bedouins,” said Waher, who is now employed by the municipality.
For energy resource exploration, in full swing since 2000, only access roads have been cleared in operations financed by the mining and petroleum companies themselves.
Plans to develop Egypt’s north coast, whose beaches are reputed to be among the best in the entire Mediterranean, represents a shift for the government.
The pristine beaches were once the sole province of the country’s summer vacationers whose many holiday villages dotting the coast are only used three months out of the year.
But the tourism authorities are now seeking to attract foreign investors and turn the area into a year-round resort rivalling the popular Red Sea resorts on the Sinai peninsula.
Emirati property giant Emaar’s $1,74-billion deal last year to build a huge complex in nearby Sidi Abdel Rahman was symbolic of Egypt’s drive to turn the area into one of the mainstays of its tourism industry.
“You will see, in two years, we will surpass Sharm al-Sheikh in Sinai,” enthused Adel Farahat, director of the Porto Marina complex, a neo-Venetian tourist village further along the Mediterranean coast. — AFP