A security official told Semella villagers in Matrouh last week that their homes would be demolished anyway to make way for a Qatari investment project signed by the government in early November. Residents are resisting eviction, demanding fair compensation including alternative land suitable for their agricultural lifestyle. This follows the government's policy of leasing state land to foreign developers, as in the Ras al-Hekma deal with the UAE.
Semella village sprawls within the Alam al-Roum area at the eastern entrance to Marsa Matrouh City, overlooking the Mediterranean. It features scattered single-storey Bedouin homes surrounded by olive and fig groves, with some holiday homes owned by outsiders. Residents rely on cultivating figs, olives, barley, and wheat, despite challenges from changing climate.
In early November, the Egyptian government signed a deal with Qatari Diyar – the real estate arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund – granting it development rights over 20 square kilometers in Matrouh’s Alam al-Roum, including a 7.2-kilometer beachfront stretch. The official agreement made no mention of plans for the area’s current residents, who hold land through informal, customary possession blocked from legal registration by recent administrative decrees.
Security visits have occurred almost daily over the past month, urging residents to vacate with promises of compensation. This overlapped with New Urban Communities Authority (NUCA) surveys of homes over two months, and last week, a demolition team backed by police razed a building amid a new construction ban. Residents tried to halt the demolition, injuring one, and are blocking surveys until fair compensation is agreed, including suitable alternative land.
NUCA offered LE10,000 per square meter for buildings, LE300,000 per feddan of land, and LE1,000 per olive tree, plus up to 1,000 square meters of alternative land per family in Al-Ghaba al-Shagariya south of the coastal road, at LE200 per square meter. Residents reject this, countering with LE30,000 per square meter, LE1.2 million per feddan, and LE10,000 per tree, plus large plots (six feddans per extended family) and full services. They doubt promises based on the Ras al-Hekma experience, where infrastructure lagged.
Residents formed a 15-member committee for negotiations and a broader 45-member one backed by MPs. Demands include a fully serviced new village with hospital and schools, relocation of five cemeteries (each with at least 500 bodies), and compensation for wells and sheep stables. Sheikh Abdallah says: “I need something that will feed the kids – or do you want us to turn into criminals? We are Arab [Bedouin] people, our job is the farm.” Youth Saeed acknowledges potential jobs but adds: “that doesn’t stand in for our land.”