Sinai's silent pain

Read the following and then imagine what could happen in the near future if we do not take immediate action to change the horrifying reality being established in Sinai. I heard the story from a Sinai resident whose job requires him to go back and forth to Cairo. He visited me after a letter headed “An appeal from Sinai”, written by Hussen Abdelmageed, an activist from Sinai, was published in Egypt’s Al-Shorouk newspaper on 22 January last year. The reader, along with many people from Sinai, believes that this letter broke the silence imposed on newspaper journalism; the violations of their rights were until then only being publicised on the internet.

The young man from Sinai appeared to be very distressed. He was exhausted due to the long journey that he had just made; it was full of checkpoints, obstacles and traps, none of which helped to eliminate terrorism as much as they put off those wanting to travel to safe areas in Sinai. They exacerbate the already hostile relations between the people of Sinai and the police and army. My visitor was distressed because an armoured vehicle had opened fire on the minibus in which he was travelling the day before. A passenger was shot and killed amid the screaming and crying of the others on the bus. I will never forget the look that the young man gave me when I asked, innocently or stupidly, whether the person who opened fire was arrested and if an official complaint was made. His reply can be translated more or less as, “What do you think?”

The young man then recounted an incident that happened to one of his relatives at the end of 2013 so that I could get an idea of the magnitude of the tragedy suffered by the people of Sinai; they fall between the hammer of mindless terrorism with a religious veneer and the anvil of the failed security agencies which hide their incompetence with oppression that just makes matters worse.

His cousin had suffered acute kidney pain which could have been treated with a simple injection at the nearest hospital or well-equipped clinic. However, her bad luck was that she got these pains while the curfew was in force. After calling all of the emergency numbers given to local citizens, which no one answered, as usual, her father contacted the police department; he knew the officers there very well and asked the official on duty to call the senior army officer in the area and inform him of the situation in order to allow a relative to take his daughter in the car to the hospital without being shot for breaking the curfew. The fear of being shot was very real because of the security situation. Her father was surprised to be told that the police officer only had the same numbers as everyone else, which had not been answered. Believing that the policeman was lying, her father let him hear his daughter’s screams of agony. Although apparently sympathetic, the policeman had no way of contacting the senior army leadership. He even swore at the young lady’s father because he himself could not leave the police station for any reason because even he may be shot.

Not one hospital would agree, no matter how much payment was offered, to send an ambulance before the end of the curfew. After hours of fruitless efforts to get the young lady to hospital, she died just before dawn. The family could not submit an official complaint; if they had, they would have been reminded of the soldiers who had been killed by terrorists, the reason for the curfew, as if father and daughter had been responsible. Family members may also have been accused of sympathising with the terrorists, or even funding terrorism, leading to their detention and possible murder. A number of honourable local officials and citizens have been in such a position.

As the young man told me his story, indeed, until the meeting was over, I kept repeating ridiculous platitudes about patience, hope and fate. Just yesterday, I read a comment written by the same young man saying that he no longer knows what to tell his mother and sisters when they ask him to leave his job and stay at home so that they do not hear that he too has been shot, like any number of Sinai families whose young people have been killed in the street on the pretext that they look suspicious. No one is being held responsible or accountable for these murders. I haven’t had the courage to reply to his comment, not even with the kind of meaningless words that accomplish nothing.

Sinai’s pain remains silent but it continues to grow. To our great shame, nobody in Egypt seems either to realise what is happening or care about the consequences.

Translated from Al-Araby Al-Jadid, 21 January, 2015

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