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Mada
07-07-2025
- Mada
Kafr al-Sanabsah: Life and death at the mercy of daily labor
Residents of the village of Kafr al-Sanabsah in Monufiya found themselves last week preparing coffins for 18 women and girls killed in a microbus crash. The vehicle was transporting them along the Regional Ring Road to work on desert farms. In a solemn funeral procession, thousands came out for the collective burial of the victims from the village — all between 14 and 22 years old. Since then, the village has remained in mourning. By the time I arrived in Kafr Sanabsah, talk of the immediate causes of the crash — the road's dangerous conditions and questions of accountability — had already begun to fade. In the mourning tents, what filled the air instead was rage at the daily wage system that governs life in the village, particularly for women. Each of the victims had set out that morning to make just LE130 for 12 hours of labor. *** 'We fight over that 130,' Abeer, a farmworker, shouted at the funeral tent for Mayada, one of the crash victims who was just 18 years old. As well as the tragedy of losing the victims, through the conversations with mourners I could feel a deeper crisis: that of lives taken in pursuit of LE130 and what that sum represents for a community becoming increasingly dependent on daily labor for its survival. According to residents speaking to Mada Masr, agricultural land ownership in the village has become so fragmented over the decades that in many cases, families own little to nothing. At best, one or two family members work a small plot of the family's land, while the rest are forced to chase daily labor to cover expenses, especially as rising operational costs continue to eat away at the potential income from these small plots. Meanwhile, the village population has grown and now stands at over 22,000, according to the village mayor Mohamed Allam. Most villagers agreed that women and girls make up the bulk of the agricultural workforce, while men tend to work in what they call 'with-his-arms' jobs — a term used to describe a range of informal work some consider unsuitable for women. This could include work in construction, carpentry, plastering or transporting goods on motorbikes — which is what Mayada's father used to do before his license expired and he was unable to renew it. At the funeral, the women told versions of the same story over and over. It is the story of working in 'the mountain,' or 'the yellow land' as villagers call the reclaimed desert farms that stretch beyond Monufiya's black, fertile soils. This time, however, the story ended with Mayada and her peers losing their lives. The 'yellow land' referred to here includes reclaimed desert areas in Beheira Governorate and also in Sadat City, which falls under Monufiya's jurisdiction, according to Farag Gharib, Mayada's uncle, who was receiving condolences in the men's funeral tent. When harvest time comes, work in the mountain splits into two categories: harvesting in the fields on one side, and sorting, packing, weighing and preparing the produce for export at packing stations. As an unmarried woman, Mayada worked in the latter category, where shifts stretch later into the day than field work. 'I leave early because I go to the fields — I'm out at dawn and back by 2 pm,' Abeer says. 'Us married women come home early for the children and cooking. The unmarried girls leave at 6 or 7 am and don't get back until 8 pm,' she says, her voice rising in anger, 'Since the accident, I'm scared to go out. This morning I couldn't afford breakfast.' The official daily wage for a farmworker in Kafr al-Sanabsah is LE200. But , LE20 goes to the labor contractor, and another LE50 is deducted from the total for transportation. 'If you go on your own [without a contractor], they cheat you out of your money and you don't get the whole sum,' one of the people attending the funeral said. 'My husband got paid less because he went on his own. They told him the tomatoes were rejected [by exporters].' Contractors' control is further entrenched by the payment system: workers are not paid daily, but every 15 days. Transport costs can also rise if there aren't enough passengers in the microbus, since the fare is typically divided among the riders. That's why, Abeer explained, the workers themselves often see overcrowding in the microbus as being in their own interest. But in practice, the rules around transportation aren't so straightforward. As the women at the funeral explain, cramming more passengers into the microbus doesn't always lead to a reduction in the LE50 transport fee. Among them were two of Mayada's peers, who had traveled the same morning in a different microbus from a neighboring village. They made it home safely from the Saad Station, where they worked that day, and learned of the fatal crash after they got home. The two young women avoided speaking in detail about the working conditions at the station and its ownership. Looking into the station reveals several companies operating under the same name: El-Saad for Export, El-Saad Fruit for Import and Export and El-Saad Company for Trading, Production, Sorting, Cooling and Freezing of Agricultural Crops. One of Mayada's peers tells me that a family member confirmed to her that the crash occurred on the way to Beheira. This makes it likely that the destination was El Saad Company for trading and post-harvest processing, located in Idku, she says. After graduating middle school, Mayada began working at the station year-round. Before this, she had only worked during the summer, as is common for many girls in the village. Summer typically brings a surge in labor, with students — both boys and girls — joining the workforce at the mountain during school holidays. In contrast, the winter season draws fewer workers, which drives up daily wages to around LE150 after the different fees are paid. Still, one mourner noted that wages remain largely uniform across employers. 'They've all agreed on the rates,' said one. 'You won't find one paying LE130 and another LE140 — otherwise people would just switch. They're all the same.' Toqa, another victim of the crash and Mayada's cousin on her mother's side, started working seasonally each summer after finishing her elementary schooling. She was under 15, her mother Sabah tells Mada Masr at her funeral. Girls like Toqa take on summer work to help pay for continuing their education, especially once they reach secondary school. That was Toqa's hope, but her mother confronted her with the reality: thanaweya amma education — or even vocational diplomas — come with steep expenses, particularly for transportation, not to mention the cost of private tutoring. These costs are largely due to the absence of secondary schools within the village itself. The nearest one, in the village of Sudud, requires a tuktuk ride. There is only one middle school in Kafr al-Sanabsah, which naturally leads to overcrowded classrooms and a heavy reliance on private tutoring, a resident who works as a teacher tells Mada Masr on condition of anonymity. For Toqa, that financial pressure translated into nearly LE1,500 a month in tutoring fees and external textbooks, according to her mother. 'We get the Takaful and Karama cash assistance, and it all goes to lessons — plus just as much again,' she said, her voice angry. 'The president who raises the price of everything for us can't fix the road?' Another victim, Marwa, was also part of the summer workforce. She had been pursuing a diploma at a technical institute and hoped eventually to enroll in a commerce faculty, her father says while receiving condolences outside their home — just a few meters from Toqa's. Grief-stricken, he spoke of how determined his daughter was to complete her education despite the family's financial hardship — especially after his health deteriorated and his already meager earnings from odd jobs, never more than LE200 per day, became even more uncertain. Marwa's uncle joined in, his voice swelling with pride as he spoke of her and her peers. 'There's no one like our girls,' he said. 'Why do you think they go out to work? It's to help their families, not to mess around.' This sentiment echoed in many conversations throughout the village that day. One relative of Toqa and Mayada was more blunt. 'Of course this isn't normal. More and more girls are forced to go out and work because of rising expenses. Last Eid, I saw a group of them heading out and asked one where she was going on Eid. She said, 'The daily wage is triple today, that's LE1,000 over three days. Do you expect us to miss a chance like that?' It wasn't like this a few years ago.' That is why residents aren't just demanding jobs — they are calling for jobs for women, jobs that would allow them to stay in their village. Even the mayor Mohamed Allam believes that setting up a local sewing workshop could be a solution, as the idea of women not working in a rural village like Kafr al-Sanabsah is simply unrealistic. For Shaimaa and Jana, two sisters who were also killed in the crash, the struggle to fund their education was shared. Shaimaa, the eldest of the two, had completed her diploma. Jana, who died before finishing middle school, would join her sister during summer breaks to work. Shaimaa, meanwhile, worked year-round, even before she graduated. She would go to work on weekends, and at times even skip school to earn money not only for her own education, but eventually to help cover Jana's as well. Just a few meters away, the funeral tent for Malak was set up. Unlike the others, Malak had abandoned her education altogether. Rising living costs and her father's forced retirement from his job at Beshay Steel in Sadat City — due to a diabetes-related leg injury — left the family in need. The company paid him no severance, and Malak began working continuously to help make ends meet. *** At every funeral I visited, the prevailing mood was anger. It led a significant number of villagers to boycott a collective condolence gathering organized by the village mayor at his home, which was attended by the governor of Monufiya. Many residents said they refused to go because the governor failed to visit the victims' families in their homes, as tradition dictates. Others criticized the lack of organizational support from authorities during the funerals, which they felt turned the burial of 18 women and girls into a chaotic and undignified ordeal. The village's narrow pathways became choked with grieving residents, and the absence of the governor at the girls' funerals only deepened the resentment. According to one eyewitness, the governor was on his way to pay home visits to the victims' families. But when he arrived in the village, a woman confronted him, saying, 'Now you come? After everything's been ruined?' He turned on his heel and left. Allam did not respond to the criticism over the collective funeral, but when speaking with Mada Masr, he acknowledged all the grievances residents raised as reasons for their poverty — chief among them the lack of job opportunities and essential services. 'The health unit here is a disaster,' he said, referring to the village's severely under-resourced clinic, a view echoed by many villagers. He added that he had tried to negotiate with officials to include Kafr al-Sanabsah in the government's Haya Karima initiative, but no decision had been made yet. What Allam did express satisfaction about was the financial compensation for the victims' families. The Labor Ministry allocated LE300,000 for each victim, and the Social Solidarity Ministry added another LE200,000 per family. Business magnate Ahmed Ezz's charitable foundation contributed an additional LE100,000 per household.
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'There was blood everywhere.' Sectarian killings ravage Syrian villages
Mayada pointed to a divot picked out of the pavement in front of her parents' house — the hole left by the bullet when gunmen threw her 85-year-old father on the ground and shot him execution-style in the head. 'His skull was completely split … all in pieces,' she said, her face impassive. Inside the house she found her mother and sister, also shot dead from a hail of bullets fired through the windows. 'There was blood everywhere." Weeks later, the blood has been washed away, but the aftereffects of the bloodletting linger here in the coastal village of Al-Sanobar and throughout northwestern Syria. The early March massacres that killed members of Mayada's family (she gave only her first name to avoid reprisals) left hundreds — maybe thousands — of civilians dead. It was the worst outbreak of violence since an Islamist rebel coalition ousted former President Bashar Assad in December and seized control of the country. The killings, which began with clashes between Assad loyalists and pro-government forces, turned into an all-out sectarian pogrom targeting Alawites, members of an Islamic sect who dominate Syria's coastal regions and are viewed by some Muslims as apostates. Assad is an Alawite. Al-Sanobar, a well-appointed village named after its plentiful pine trees, is a ghost town, with many house fronts blackened with scorch marks. Only the occasional woman or old man appears on the streets, making furtive bread runs before quickly heading home; young men are nowhere to be found. Inside Mayada's home, the living room has a frieze of shrapnel spatter covering a wall. 'After they killed everyone they killed, the government told us we should come back home. But most of the men are still in hiding,' Mayada said, her eyes flitting between a visiting journalist and the direction of a security checkpoint manned by government soldiers a few dozen yards from her house. Mayada began to count off the dead she and surviving villagers had found in the houses nearby before stopping at the thought of one her neighbors, a 15-year-old boy. "His mother begged them to leave him alone, saying he was a child, and that she would give them money or gold she had to spare his life,' she said. They took the money and killed him anyway, she said. For the new Syrian government, the violence fractured the honeymoon period that followed the departure of a long-reviled dictator, and cast serious doubts as to whether the government can corral armed factions it says will form the backbone of a new national army. Abroad, the killings have tanked the new authorities' hopes of legitimizing their rule before the international community and of ending sanctions on a country ravaged by nearly 14 years of civil war. The United States, United Kingdom and Europe have demanded accountability for the violence. On March 31, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said any adjustment to U.S. policy on Syria would be contingent on the government's actions, including guaranteeing the rights of minorities. To allay those fears, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa formed a seven-person investigative committee, which last month began interviewing victims' families and witnesses while analyzing dozens of videos of the massacres, many of them taken and uploaded to social media by the perpetrators themselves. So far, said committee spokesman Yasser Farhan, the panel has investigated only the province of Latakia but will soon move to neighboring provinces. The committee will also interview pro-government gunmen and Assad loyalists in the authorities' custody. The results of the investigation are expected to be released in about two months. 'Peace remains fragile if justice isn't achieved,' Farhan said, adding that he understood Syrians' skepticism of investigative committees. During the Assad regime, such panels were used to hide crimes committed by the security forces. 'We have to move forward with rapid and just measures for accountability if we want to stop the culture of taking your rights by your own hand,' he said. But even with all that, assigning blame will be no easy task. To subdue what al-Sharaa says was an attempted coup by Assad loyalists, he rallied not only his fighters in the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham but dozens of other factions, including hard-line militant groups with variable loyalty to the country's new leaders. Also joining them were thousands eager to wreak vengeance on the Alawites, a minority they blame for empowering Assad's brutal rule, even though most did not benefit from the former regime. Alawites follow a synchretic religion that is an offshoot of Shia Islam. Iran joined the Syrian civil war on the side of Assad's government, supercharging sectarian tensions with Syria's Sunni-majority population. A full accounting of the casualties has yet to be completed, but monitoring groups say more than 1,300 people were killed, including 211 members of the Syrian security forces and 228 civilians killed by Assad loyalists. Analysts say that punishing anyone from factions fighting alongside the government could trigger a wide-scale insurrection — a potentially deadly blow to a fledgling government relying on those groups to secure its grip of the country. Others point out that the queue for justice in Syria is long: Though former regime enforcers have been caught, most remain free and have been allowed to live openly among the communities they victimized. Among Alawites, few believe anyone will be held to account — especially with sectarian violence still ongoing. On March 31, the first day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan, two masked gunmen from military factions affiliated with the Syrian army executed six Alawites in the village of Haref Benemra, including the mayor and a child, authorities said. Meanwhile, social media is awash with reports of factions entering villages for bouts of looting, or kidnapping and killing local notables, including in Al-Sanobar. 'One faction kills and another steals … they all cover for each other,' Mayada said. A drive through Syria's coast and the nearby mountains reveals a string of shell-shocked communities, with the electric tension of potential violence felt at every checkpoint. In the Alawite-dominated neighborhoods in the cities of Jableh and Banias, where some of the worst massacres took place, residents hid indoors and refused to speak to a visiting journalist. Storefronts were either shuttered, defaced, or both, with the husks of burnt cars lining the side of the road. Other vehicles lay abandoned, their windshields adorned with the telltale spider webs of bullet holes. It was much the same along the highway leading away from the coast, where village after village showed signs of violence. 'I was hiding all this time. It's the only reason I survived. I only came back a few days ago,' said Yasser, a 35-year-old automotive supplies merchant surveying the damage to his store in the village of Barmaya. On the walls, someone had spray painted graffiti calling Alawites dogs and apostates. Others vowed, 'By Allah we will fight you.' 'There's a martyr in every place you pass on the road here,' Yasser said, shaking his head. During the killings in early March, about 8,000 people — most of them Alawite families — sought shelter in Russia's Khmeimim Airbase, six miles south of Al-Sanobar, according to Russian authorities. Many remain there, living in a tented encampment but with little in way of supplies. The Russians, meanwhile, have made it clear that residents must leave. But many have refused to do so without security guarantees, or authorization for locals to take up arms and defend their communities. 'How can this government protect us? They can't even protect abandoned villages from looting,' said Nawras, a 38-year-old commercial ship captain who had taken his mother, sister and brother's family to the air base while staying with his own wife at the base's periphery. He gave his first name to avoid reprisals against his family. 'You can't impose control, nor are you allowing me to defend myself,' he said. 'So you're telling me to come be slaughtered. It's like you're executing me.' Though Mayada remains home, the feeling of safety is gone. She and her family were alert to every sound, worried that any moment could bring pro-government gunmen to the house. She spoke in a weary tone of how no one in the village was allowed to bury their dead. "They just took all the corpses and put them in a pit near the village shrine," she said. "There isn't even a sign." Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
05-04-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
‘There was blood everywhere.' Sectarian killings ravage Syrian villages
AL-SANOBAR, Syria — Mayada pointed to a divot picked out of the pavement in front of her parents' house — the hole left by the bullet when gunmen threw her 85-year-old father on the ground and shot him execution-style in the head. 'His skull was completely split … all in pieces,' she said, her face impassive. Inside the house she found her mother and sister, also shot dead from a hail of bullets fired through the windows. 'There was blood everywhere.' Weeks later, the blood has been washed away, but the aftereffects of the bloodletting linger here in the coastal village of Al-Sanobar and throughout northwestern Syria. The early March massacres that killed members of Mayada's family (she gave only her first name to avoid reprisals) left hundreds — maybe thousands — of civilians dead. It was the worst outbreak of violence since an Islamist rebel coalition ousted former President Bashar Assad in December and seized control of the country. The killings, which began with clashes between Assad loyalists and pro-government forces, turned into an all-out sectarian pogrom targeting Alawites, members of an Islamic sect who dominate Syria's coastal regions and are viewed by some Muslims as apostates. Assad is an Alawite. Al-Sanobar, a well-appointed village named after its plentiful pine trees, is a ghost town, with many house fronts blackened with scorch marks. Only the occasional woman or old man appears on the streets, making furtive bread runs before quickly heading home; young men are nowhere to be found. Inside Mayada's home, the living room has a frieze of shrapnel spatter covering a wall. 'After they killed everyone they killed, the government told us we should come back home. But most of the men are still in hiding,' Mayada said, her eyes flitting between a visiting journalist and the direction of a security checkpoint manned by government soldiers a few dozen yards from her house. Mayada began to count off the dead she and surviving villagers had found in the houses nearby before stopping at the thought of one her neighbors, a 15-year-old boy. 'His mother begged them to leave him alone, saying he was a child, and that she would give them money or gold she had to spare his life,' she said. They took the money and killed him anyway, she said. For the new Syrian government, the violence fractured the honeymoon period that followed the departure of a long-reviled dictator, and cast serious doubts as to whether the government can corral armed factions it says will form the backbone of a new national army. Abroad, the killings have tanked the new authorities' hopes of legitimizing their rule before the international community and of ending sanctions on a country ravaged by nearly 14 years of civil war. The United States, United Kingdom and Europe have demanded accountability for the violence. On March 31, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said any adjustment to U.S. policy on Syria would be contingent on the government's actions, including guaranteeing the rights of minorities. To allay those fears, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa formed a seven-person investigative committee, which last month began interviewing victims' families and witnesses while analyzing dozens of videos of the massacres, many of them taken and uploaded to social media by the perpetrators themselves. So far, said committee spokesman Yasser Farhan, the panel has investigated only the province of Latakia but will soon move to neighboring provinces. The committee will also interview pro-government gunmen and Assad loyalists in the authorities' custody. The results of the investigation are expected to be released in about two months. 'Peace remains fragile if justice isn't achieved,' Farhan said, adding that he understood Syrians' skepticism of investigative committees. During the Assad regime, such panels were used to hide crimes committed by the security forces. 'We have to move forward with rapid and just measures for accountability if we want to stop the culture of taking your rights by your own hand,' he said. But even with all that, assigning blame will be no easy task. To subdue what al-Sharaa says was an attempted coup by Assad loyalists, he rallied not only his fighters in the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham but dozens of other factions, including hard-line militant groups with variable loyalty to the country's new leaders. Also joining them were thousands eager to wreak vengeance on the Alawites, a minority they blame for empowering Assad's brutal rule, even though most did not benefit from the former regime. Alawites follow a synchretic religion that is an offshoot of Shia Islam. Iran joined the Syrian civil war on the side of Assad's government, supercharging sectarian tensions with Syria's Sunni-majority population. A full accounting of the casualties has yet to be completed, but monitoring groups say more than 1,300 people were killed, including 211 members of the Syrian security forces and 228 civilians killed by Assad loyalists. Analysts say that punishing anyone from factions fighting alongside the government could trigger a wide-scale insurrection — a potentially deadly blow to a fledgling government relying on those groups to secure its grip of the country. Others point out that the queue for justice in Syria is long: Though former regime enforcers have been caught, most remain free and have been allowed to live openly among the communities they victimized. Among Alawites, few believe anyone will be held to account — especially with sectarian violence still ongoing. On March 31, the first day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan, two masked gunmen from military factions affiliated with the Syrian army executed six Alawites in the village of Haref Benemra, including the mayor and a child, authorities said. Meanwhile, social media is awash with reports of factions entering villages for bouts of looting, or kidnapping and killing local notables, including in Al-Sanobar. 'One faction kills and another steals … they all cover for each other,' Mayada said. A drive through Syria's coast and the nearby mountains reveals a string of shell-shocked communities, with the electric tension of potential violence felt at every checkpoint. In the Alawite-dominated neighborhoods in the cities of Jableh and Banias, where some of the worst massacres took place, residents hid indoors and refused to speak to a visiting journalist. Storefronts were either shuttered, defaced, or both, with the husks of burnt cars lining the side of the road. Other vehicles lay abandoned, their windshields adorned with the telltale spider webs of bullet holes. It was much the same along the highway leading away from the coast, where village after village showed signs of violence. 'I was hiding all this time. It's the only reason I survived. I only came back a few days ago,' said Yasser, a 35-year-old automotive supplies merchant surveying the damage to his store in the village of Barmaya. On the walls, someone had spray painted graffiti calling Alawites dogs and apostates. Others vowed, 'By Allah we will fight you.' 'There's a martyr in every place you pass on the road here,' Yasser said, shaking his head. During the killings in early March, about 8,000 people — most of them Alawite families — sought shelter in Russia's Khmeimim Airbase, six miles south of Al-Sanobar, according to Russian authorities. Many remain there, living in a tented encampment but with little in way of supplies. The Russians, meanwhile, have made it clear that residents must leave. But many have refused to do so without security guarantees, or authorization for locals to take up arms and defend their communities. 'How can this government protect us? They can't even protect abandoned villages from looting,' said Nawras, a 38-year-old commercial ship captain who had taken his mother, sister and brother's family to the air base while staying with his own wife at the base's periphery. He gave his first name to avoid reprisals against his family. 'You can't impose control, nor are you allowing me to defend myself,' he said. 'So you're telling me to come be slaughtered. It's like you're executing me.' Though Mayada remains home, the feeling of safety is gone. She and her family were alert to every sound, worried that any moment could bring pro-government gunmen to the house. She spoke in a weary tone of how no one in the village was allowed to bury their dead. 'They just took all the corpses and put them in a pit near the village shrine,' she said. 'There isn't even a sign.'
Trade Arabia
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Trade Arabia
Egypt boosts cultural diplomacy, tourism in Malaysia
Egypt Beauty Queens Mayada Hamed, Miss Mediterranean International 2025 from Cairo, and Lily Ahmed, Miss Mediterranean Teen 2025 from Alexandria, embarked on a 14-day touristic visit to Malaysia to celebrate the natural beauty shared by Malaysia and Egypt. Their journey, in collaboration with the Miss Mediterranean International (MMI) Organisation, aimed at fostering cultural exchange and promoting tourism cooperation between the two countries. Representing Egypt on this prestigious visit, the two beauty queens engaged in a variety of cultural activities, reinforcing the message of unity and appreciation of heritage. Their itinerary included two major destinations: the bustling capital city of Kuala Lumpur and the serene Langkawi Island. Highlights of the Visit During their stay, Mayada and Lily participated in Batik painting workshops, where they learned the ancient Malaysian technique of wax-resist dyeing. They also attended traditional Malaysian dance performances, including Joget, Zapin, and Kuda Kepang dances, immersing themselves in the country's vibrant cultural expressions. 'Being able to engage directly with Malaysia's traditions made me feel connected to the culture in such a unique way. These moments of cultural exchange show how beauty pageants can bridge cultures and bring people together,' said Lily Ahmed, Miss Mediterranean Teen 2025. A key highlight of the visit was their trip to Batu Caves, a significant spiritual and historical landmark. They explored religious sites such as the Sri Venkatachalapathi & Alamelu Temple, Ramayana Cave, and The Cave Villa, deepening their appreciation of Malaysia's cultural diversity. 'Visiting Batu Caves was an unforgettable experience. The beauty of the site and the stories behind its religious significance gave us a deeper appreciation of Malaysia's cultural diversity,' said Mayada Hamed, Miss Mediterranean International 2025. Strengthening Global Tourism and Cultural Appreciation 'I am particularly attuned to the richness of Malaysia's traditions and history. Malaysia's commitment to culture and religion is something it shares with my country. The love for ancient heritage and traditions unites us,' added Mayada Hamed. In addition to experiencing Malaysia's cultural richness, the queens visited landmarks such as the Petronas Twin Towers, Merdeka Square, Istana Negara, and Thean Hou Temple. Their journey showcased the country's deep commitment to preserving its heritage. The collaboration between the Miss Mediterranean Beauty Pageant and the MMI Organisation underscores a shared commitment to fostering global tourism and cultural connections. By exploring Malaysia's heritage and engaging with its traditions, Mayada and Lily not only highlighted Malaysia's appeal as a travel destination but also shared Egypt's values of unity, cultural appreciation, and global partnership. The Miss Mediterranean Beauty Pageant is honoured to have been part of this impactful cultural initiative, and both Mayada and Lily look forward to continuing their roles as ambassadors of cultural diplomacy and tourism for Egypt. -TradeArabia News Service
