Located some 100 miles from the city of Aswan in southern Egypt, Samaha village is billed as a place where divorced and widowed women can begin a new life — with some help from the government.
“Everything was available, electricity, water, anything that we asked for: transportation, health care,” said Mohamed El-Badry, a teacher who moved to Samaha with his mother while in college. He added, “Gradually, things started to fade away, one thing following another."