Another truce was announced in Tahrir with the army erecting a concrete wall to separate protesters and Central Security Forces (CSF) engaged in clashes for five days. Meanwhile, social media and the field are swarming with supply collectors and aid organizers.
As protesters sit in in hundreds of thousands in Tahrir demanding the end of military rule, facing wave after wave of tear gas attacks, organizers on Twitter and Facebook, and their peers offline, are spearheading a comprehensive community effort to flood the square with food, blankets, medicine, gas masks, bullet-proof goggles, and even volunteer doctors and paramedics who can help with field hospitals.
Over 3000 injuries are officially reported, with 35 deaths, though people in the square say the figures are much higher. On Sunday alone, the day after the violence erupted, the Ministry of Health reported that 22 protesters were killed, and over 471 were injured.
Both parties -- the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) and CSF-- denied on Wednesday and Thursday that they are responsible for the deaths, with Interior Minister Mansour El-Essawy blaming “unidentified” snipers firing on protesters from rooftops. SCAF general Hamdy El Badeen said that the army hasn’t entered Tahrir since September.
On the sixth day of clashes, TV channels continued to air live footage from Mohamed Mahmoud street --right off the square -- which now looks like something akin to a war zone, with piles of rocks, ammunition and gas canister shells and a cloud of gas in view. People with motorcycles were seen until this morning continuously carrying the injured from the front lines to nearby hospitals.
Despite the violence of the past few days, numbers are swelling in Tahrir ahead of Friday’s protest. Citizens, both in Tahrir and outside, are organizing to get supplies to those who need it by all means possible. Twitter accounts @TahrirNeeds and @TahrirSupplies were created specifically to pool the efforts, and getting word out about much-needed aid. @Wadeeny picks up volunteers and supplies from across town. Some have created online documents with contact lists of aid suppliers and organisers, on and off the square.
Kasr El Ainy public hospital is collecting blood donations for the injured, in addition to other nearby hospitals. Several ambulances in Tahrir are also taking blood donations. Pharmacies are giving discounts to those who are buying medicine for Tahrir. And women are on the frontline standing on guard to aid the protesters, most ready with a mixture of yeast and water to wash off the effects of the mysterious tear gas that CSF is using overwhelmingly.
Activist and blogger Mostafa Sheshtawy, who talked to Egypt Today last Monday, said that “90 percent of the people on the front line are women, it’s really amazing.”
Thankfully, efforts to help the revolutionaries are unyielding on every front. Numerous field hospitals have sprung up at different locations around the square with “a huge number of doctors and nurses helping out,” said Sheshtawy.
Pharmacist Ahmed Saber, a volunteer for a field hospital on Talaat Harb Street, which lies just off the square, is on standby for any protester who might come in for help. Cases of asphyxia are the most common, he said.
“In the past two days, we’ve had tens of injured protesters coming in. But, today around three hopeless near-death cases were transferred to hospitals unfortunately,” said Saber on Monday night.
Saber is in Tahrir to “save lives.” Choosing to forgo work, Saber would rather be of service to his country, he said. “Egypt is worth risking our lives for. We would give our country anything. Why would my work stop me from doing that?” he added.
Several eye specialists have also offered to treat any injured civilians for free. Among them are Hazem Yassin and Amr El Bakry, prominent physicians whose cell phone numbers have been circulating widely on twitter, Facebook and Blackberry messenger.
Efforts to help those in need are not only limited to specialists.
Mariam Fahmy, an activist working with presidential candidate Mohamed El Baradie’s media campaign, collected massive amounts of supplies and delivered them to Tahrir, along with tweeter May Kamel.
“It started with a tweet,” Fahmy said. She then sent out broadcast messages on Blackberry’s messenger application telling people she’s collecting supplies in Heliopolis. Fahmy and Kamel were able to collect medical supplies such as syringes, surgical utensils and medicines, blankets and boxes of food. They had to rent a truck due to the quantity of stuff they received, in order to move it to Tahrir.
Fahmy didn’t expect this much cooperation from people. She was able to collect all the supplies over the course of only two hours. “It was beyond description. It was very overwhelming. Everyone wanted to help,” said Fahmy. Accessing Tahrir was easy. Nobody tried to stop them. They distributed the supplies to three field hospitals around the square.
Bikya Book Café in Nasr City is also acting as a collection point for Tahrir supplies, and to say that they have been able to amass huge amounts of food would be an understatement. Rana Faramawy, one of the owners, said that they have received, at least, 1,500 sandwiches, if not more. People also dropped off money.
“I was amazed. People were amazing and very helpful. Once we tweeted that we needed people to come pick the stuff up, we got around three or four trucks to transfer them,” said Faramawy.
Egypt Today also got in touch with a woman who paid for over 2,000 eye surgeries for protesters whose eyes were shot at in Tahrir. Being overwhelmed by her field work, she couldn’t give this reporter a thorough interview.
Photo(s) by: Associated Press
