Sunday, April 27, 2008

Ministry confirms population cull

Spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior Bashar el Gelied confirmed today that his department has received marching orders from the Ministry of Supply to reduce “excess population” in “over-dense sections of the Delta and Upper Egypt” by liquidating approximately a third of the people living there.

“In the face of rising food prices, we have no choice but to roll back some of the population increases that have taken place in the last fifty years.” Gelied said. Officials were quick to deny, meanwhile, that the area most sharply effected by the cull—Mahalla al Kobra—was chosen for political reasons rather than lottery, as was claimed earlier in the week.

“We’re professionals at this sort of thing,” said Gelied, before calling the press conference to a conclusion.

“It’s really past time for this kind of action” said Maria Smythe for the American Embassy in Cairo, “we’ve been calling on the Egyptian government to do something about the population problem for years. And if their actions also serve a social stability agenda, so be it.”