Eye-witness account: Police torched tents of wounded protesters

Sheikh Salah Sultan, an eye witness to the police and army attack on anti-coup protesters in Rabaa Al-Adawiya said that they were awakened to the sound of live bullets of snipers raining over their heads from everywhere.

Describing the effect of the ammunition used Sheikh Sultan said: “The bullets made big holes in the bodies and some of them made an entry without an exit. They simply exploded inside the bodies and caused much damage.”

Responding to the Interior Minister, Mohamed Ibrahim, who claimed that the police used microphones to urge the protesters to leave the square before they approached, Sheikh Sultan said; “We did not hear any voices calling. We woke up to the sound of heavy gunfire.”

Sheikh Sultan said that he was on the stage of the protest and saw snipers from four directions and from a helicopter shooting at the protesters. He said that a cameraman was shot dead in the first hour of the attack just 1.5 metres away from where he was. He added that they deliberately targeted journalists in order to hide their massacre.

He also affirmed that he saw snipers targeting first aid staff offering treatment to the wounded outside the field clinic.

Describing the area where the snipers targeted the protesters, Sheikh Sultan said: “They targeted heads, necks and chests. Five died before my eyes.”

In a savage and an unprecedented act, Sheikh Sultan described how the police entered to the tents where there were wounded and corpses and torched them. “There were some wounded among the dead that we could not offer help to and the police torched all of them,” he said.

He said that there were no safe exists for those who wanted to flee. “When I left, many were killed; we left under continuous live fire,” he said.

The Sheikh described what happened as “war crimes and collective massacres.”