As I type these words on this 10th day of Syawal, 1434 After Hijrah, there are thousands of Egyptians who have been massacred by their Egyptian Army and tens of thousands of others who have been hurt and wounded, suffering without medical care for their hospitals are being torched and burned down together with the sick and invalid!
Here is a report from Islam Abdel Rahman, a medical officer and one of those who were present at the scene of the carnage depicted above and aptly titled :
August 16, 2013 at 4:44am
'Being one of the protesters who used to camp at Rabaa sit-in, I was present at There at Wednesday morning. At about 6:00 am there was an alarm in the square that everybody should leave his tent and present in the middle of the sit-in and an emergency status was felt everywhere.
At about 6:30, I started to experience some difficulty with the internet signal and I used to wander in the sit in and at about 6:40 I was present in the area behind the Tiba mall and then I knew that the attack has started when I found the shower of teargas thrown at the entry of the sit-in.
It was just minutes when I have saw the first protester covered with his own blood with a severe wound in his right arm that had much of the muscle blown off from it! Being an Anesthetist and Critical Care Physician, I took the decision to go to the field hospital and volunteer my services there.
The hospital there was well organized and seemed to have learned its lessons from the past two massacres yet with the continuous inflow of the injured, matters start to get chaotic.
I had not been present during the last two massacres by the Republican Guards Club or during the Al Azhar Massacre so I was astonished to see the amount of horrible injuries.
Within less than 3 hours, the hospital itself and the adjacent halls were completely full with corpses and injured protesters. The injuries varied from bird-shots to live bullets! However most of the live bullet shots were in the upper half of the body mainly in the head and neck with consequent lethal wounds.
At about 10-10:30 am, tear gas started to be thrown close to the hospital and the air inside became so choking that forced all the hospital staff to wear their masks.
As I was not registered in the hospital, I did not have such a mask so being unable to breathe, I left the first floor where the incoming emergency cases were being received and went upstairs to try and get one from the supplies room.
At the second floor there was a room filled with women carrying their young children seeking refugee from the dense teargas, and another room where I got an ordinary face mask after I could not find one against the tear gas.
I continued work with the newly injured people coming to the hospital but the situation got very worse with the high flow of patients. The severity of cases which was beyond a small field hospital, with the teargas filling the air (which I discovered later it was thrown by helicopters) and finally the sounds of bullets coming very close to the hospital.
At 12:00 pm, there was an order to evacuate the hospital immediately as there was fears from an imminent break through the hospital and everybody was ordered to hide his medical identity, scrubs or white coats fearing of any arrest or questionnaire.
I left the hospital passing through a huge hall which was filled with corpses of the victims, then through another hall which was filled with the wounded whose cases were not very severe (and when I say not severe meaning that they still have a few hours to live without close care but in normal conditions they would need operations) but what broke my heart was the scene of the women and old men beside their wounded loved ones, crying as there was no help for them in the middle of this bloody crackdown)
I stayed in a corridor behind the field hospital and close to the Rabaa Mosque where there were some injured protesters who could not find any place in the hall mentioned above so they sought refuge in that corridor.
One of those injured ones who had been shot in his leg looked to me and asked "Dr! Why are you standing like this? Please go and try transfer or help any of the patients!"
I felt much sympathy for that young man who didn't think about himself but was concerned about his mates who had been under the bloody attack!
I did not know where to go after the hospital evacuation so I stayed in an area close to the mosque where many women were staying there along with the old men.
The sound of the bullets being fired was continuous and terrible and smoke was filling the air. It had been just a few minutes when I started to see white smoke of the teargas filling the corridor where I stood in and I thought immediately about the injured there and the young injured man who had talked to me and didn't know if they have been evacuated or not?
People were waving with clothes and sheets in attempt to make waves of air to reduce the terrible smell of the smoke and teargas. After about an hour, I met someone who knew that I was in the field hospital and told me that the hospital of Rabaa Charity Society had opened its doors to receive the injured, so I went there to find the hospital opening its glass doors and receiving new cases.
I started work immediately and felt some comfort to work in a real hospital and especially when some of our colleagues managed to get supplies from the field hospital. We started to deal with the new cases and just my luck that the rate of incoming cases started to decrease. I thought of the possibility that the security forces may have halted their attack.
I continued to work with the present cases doing my best however there were some very terrible cases. One of those was a foreign reporter (I knew from his colleague that they work for Sky News) who had been shot with a live bullet in his lower chest and he lost so much blood that he became very pale.
I performed first aid on him, then told his colleague that this man needs urgent surgical attention. I could not find them minutes later and do not know certainly whether he was still alive or not?
I remember telling one of the Sky News team whether they could send an SOS to the world to urge the Egyptian Army and Police to stop targeting hospitals with teargas and live bullets?
During this quiet period, I went down to the basement to get some rest but found two injured persons from my hometown there. One of them had an injury in his foot and the other in his leg, but both were alive and in great condition compared to the cases around them.
I did a CPR (life support) on one victim but he died, so I helped the team to transfer him, but we were informed that the refrigerator of the hospital was filled with about 40 bodies, and was ordered to transfer him to the third floor.
I thought he would be the first one their but to my shock I found a wide hall covered with about 30-40 corpses on its floor. I put him besides one and went downstairs to the emergency reception only to learn that the entrance of the hospital had come under the sights of a sniper who shoots anyone coming in or out from the hospital.
It was heart breaking to see people running very fast carrying supplies or wounded patients and try to escape from that sniper who was also targeting anyone looking out from the windows of the hospital. Later a bullet targeted the glass door smashing one of its sides.
At about 3:00 o'clock our small peace ended with massive waves of the injured coming to the hospital. This time was much more then from the morning and the injuries were much more fatal. I have seen patients with their heads blown off and their brain tissues lying on the floor. I have also seen many victims with precision wounds in their heads or neck, after being shot by the snipers.
It was just at 4:00 o'clock when the floors of the basement and first floor become covered completely with bodies of the injured and dead and I knew that the situation in the floors above were similar.
There were ambulances trying to transfer patients from the back door of the hospital but with the fatality of the injured patients, I think they could just transfer about 5% of those who needed immediate surgical help.
The situation became a tragedy because we could not cover all the incoming cases. We were thinking about the cases which may have a chance of surviving whatever small chances they might have and work on them.
Floors became covered with blood and new patients were being passed above the ones already lying on the floors. I worked like a machine and couldn't believe that I am alive seeing this happening in my country.
I volunteered at the Tahrir Square Field Hospital in 2011 but it cannot be compared to the massacre of Rabaa. I could not take any pictures or document the patients and was being very busy trying save some lives.
The stench of death was everywhere and my clothes were covered completely with blood.
I may need to write a book to tell the stories of the many patients I dealt with.
At 5:00 pm the bullets targeted the door again smashing it completely and the sound of firing became very intense and close. Half an hour later an open fire was raging inside the emergency reception room which was filled with medical teams and injured patients.
Terror swept the hospital and everybody became trapped inside his place. Ten minutes later, police officers broke into the hospital. They were huge men, wearing black special ops clothing and carrying huge guns which I have never seen before.
They ordered everybody to leave the hospital. A debate erupted about what we should do with the hundreds of injured inside who were still alive and if we should trust those officers or not but once one of these officers entered the section in which we were inside, everybody started to get out.
When I was leaving, I told one of the officers that there were injured inside. He shouted in my face "Let them die! Let them die!" and walked menacingly towards me with his huge gun with such ferocity and was about to attack me.
Luckily, I managed to go outside through the smashed glass door while he was busy occupied with those leaving through the opposite section.
Outside the hospital, it was a horrible scenario with corpses on the streets and fires burning everywhere. We walked beside walls under the fire of the police officers and I don't know if anybody has been killed behind me or not.
I walked outside the nearby streets worrying if I would be shot or arrested but seems the army and police were busy with the remaining protesters inside the sit-in that they left us.
I looked behind and saw a huge smoke arising after they had burned the hospital with everybody inside! Especially the dead corpses and the injured ones who could not leave the hospital.
Till this moment, I will not forget about one of my latest cases of a man being shot in his head but who was still alive!
He had come to the hospital accompanied by his nephew who was about 15-16 years old. I did first aid and intubated him leaving his nephew to do the ampu breathing for him.
While I was going outside, I could still remember seeing the helpless look of this young boy imploring us to help his uncle. The uncle most probably had been burnt down with the hospital and I don't know what has happened to that young boy?
I walked away wondering if it has really been humans who were attacking us or not?
The shootings were purposely meant to kill and the massive injuries was beyond imagination. I would never believe that I would live to see Egyptians killed on the streets and hospitals being burnt down with living or dead patients inside.
If this has happened to us by the actions of our fellow Egyptians who are supposed to protect us what would happen to us if a foreign enemy invades our country?
I am writing these lines and still cannot believe it myself.
I hope this would be a nightmare that I will wake up from soon!'
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My dear readers,
This is what will happen when our politicians keep rattling the saber so to speak and wish for confrontations to take place between the Malaysian people and the Federal Government or powers that be by going onto the streets and urging our people to break the laws and resort to violence!
The culprits behind the various demonstrations and protests that have taken place here in Malaysia lately will mostly be the cowardly bastards who will high tail it out of the confrontation zone and scurry back to their holes at their infernal party headquarters.
Who will suffer like what the Egyptians are now facing?
Who else but those slogan shouting, banner waving dimwits who gather on our capital city streets and wage war against the well armed government security apparatus!
Learn from the tragedy above and seek political change if you want it so badly at the next polls.
If you are still so damn unhappy, go on and kill yourselves!!! You asked for it!