The Cairo Metro is often described as an efficient and safe means of transportation in a city notorious for its anarchic traffic. For the millions of Egyptians who use the subway daily, it is the preferred way of getting around the congested city. Female-only cars allow women to avoid sexual harassment, which is all too common on Cairo's crowded buses and streets. Lately, however, the Cairo underground has been used by an increasing number of Egyptians for an entirely different purpose, albeit a deadly one.

Since March 2018, at least eight people — most of them under the age of 25 — have attempted suicide by jumping in front of speeding trains. Six were killed by oncoming trains. The two who survived include a 17-year-old girl, who, before she jumped on the tracks, had been quarreling with her mother in the crowded Ezbet El Nakhl Station on Sept. 5. Though she survived, she suffered serious injuries. The other survivor, a 41-year-old telecom company employee, had his leg amputated as a result of his attempt to take his own life.

On Jan. 15, Omar Hassan Ali, 22, a university student, threw himself under the wheels of a train approaching Mar Girgis Station in Old Cairo, the latest Metro suicide to shock the country. In Egypt's predominantly Muslim society, suicide is considered a sin. According to the hadiths, or sayings of Prophet Muhammad, those who take their own life "suffer eternal hellfire." They also bring shame upon their families. Those beliefs, however, have failed to deter the suicide seekers who — apparently out of desperation, anger or frustration — attempted to end their lives in this brutal manner. The fact that they have chosen to do so publicly, rather than privately at home, is believed by some sociologists to be a form of protest or a statement against the conditions that drove them to commit their act of despair.

"It's a cry for attention; they were trying to send a message [about their plight] to the entire society. If they had quietly committed suicide at home, the message would have been lost," Saeed Sadek, a professor of political sociology at Ahram Canadian University, told Al-Monitor.