Unreported World

Egypt's Tomb Raiders (2013x14)

Air date: Nov 08, 2013

Unreported World investigates the shocking effects Egypt's political unrest is having on the country's tourism industry and the unique archaeological heritage. Reporter Aidan Hartley and director Alex Nott find ancient archaeological sites being plundered by armed looters; people who previously worked as guides trying to survive without money or food and the corpses of horses and camels that used to carry tourists lying in piles in the desert next to the pyramids. Egypt's economy has always relied on tourism, but since the army toppled the Muslim Brotherhood in a bloody coup, tourism has collapsed. The Giza Plateau is home to one of the Seven Wonders of the World and it used to have 10,000 tourists visiting every day. Now it's eerily quiet, with the average number of tourists more like 10 a day. Emad Abu Zuba and Hima Abdurahman are tourist guides who offer camel rides at Giza. Before the crisis they did a brisk business but they can't remember when they last had a tourist client. Hima hasn't made any money for 14 days in a row and Emad says that people can't afford to feed their animals any more. He takes the team into the desert near the pyramids to show them the results. They find several piles of up to 50 dead horses lying in the sand. Emad says: 'Today if you saw 1000 horses, maybe next month you'll see 2000 of them. The third month you will see 3000 of them. One horse can feed one family. If you are going to count how many horses that are dead, it means the whole of that family has no money to live now.' The collapse of law and order, together with the collapse in tourism, is having a devastating effect on the country's archaeological treasures. The army and police have imposed a midnight curfew in Cairo, leaving the sites out in the desert unguarded. At the most famous tourist site in the world, archaeologist Monica Hanna reveals how armed looters are now plundering the network of ancient and unexplored tombs and temples for treasure. Eve