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Wrapped in a brown sweater, to protect himself against the Egyptian winter, a man turns the coals of a camp-fire to keep the water boiling for tea at a makeshift shanty-town in front of the blue iron fence that encircles a shuttered factory in an industrial suburb of north-west Cairo.

A group of men from the camp gather to chat and tell their stories to curious visitors or passers-by. Gamal Mansuer, an older man with a white beard, holds up an inhaler and a small breathing machine.