Patrick Kingsley
The Observer,
An injured supporter of the deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi receives medical treatment in a makeshift hospital after clashes with riot police in Cairo. Photograph: Amru Salahuddien/Xinhua Press/Corbis
"By early Saturday afternoon, there were so many corpses arriving at Cairo's Zeinhom mortuary that the street outside was blocked with a queue of orange ambulances. Inside one of them, mechanical engineer Mohamed Khamis waited with the body of his 15-year-old son, Omar, shot in the head by police.
"He will go back to school this autumn, God willing," said Mohamed, struggling to come to terms with Omar's death, his hands still covered in his son's dried blood.
Six hours earlier, both father and son had been surveying the scene of Cairo's most recent massacre. They had taken care to avoid the frontline, but suddenly they heard gunfire close by. Mohamed turned to run.
"And as I turned, I felt him fall on my shoulder," said Mohamed, his body shaking slightly. "I put my hand out to catch him and his head fell on my hand. I felt his crushed skull. There was blood on the floor. He was already dead."
Omar Khamis was one of at least 100 pro-Mohamed Morsi supporters killed by state officials in an eight-hour-long massacre on Saturday morning – Egypt's second mass killing of Islamists in three weeks. In post-revolutionary Cairo, now more divided than ever after the toppling of Morsi on 3 July, the narrative of history is rarely straightforward. On Saturday the city was awash with claims and counterclaims about whether the bloody events had been provoked......
Some casualties reported seeing police or army snipers firing on protesters from buildings inside the nearby Al-Azhar University, and medics said the accuracy of the shooting suggested that snipers may have been in action.
"The injuries were very precise – which suggests they were shot by snipers," said Dr Mohamed Lotfy, in charge of the clinic's medical supplies. "There were bullet holes in the centre of the forehead and right in the back of the skull. It was not just shooting to injure. They were shooting to kill.""
"He will go back to school this autumn, God willing," said Mohamed, struggling to come to terms with Omar's death, his hands still covered in his son's dried blood.
Six hours earlier, both father and son had been surveying the scene of Cairo's most recent massacre. They had taken care to avoid the frontline, but suddenly they heard gunfire close by. Mohamed turned to run.
"And as I turned, I felt him fall on my shoulder," said Mohamed, his body shaking slightly. "I put my hand out to catch him and his head fell on my hand. I felt his crushed skull. There was blood on the floor. He was already dead."
Omar Khamis was one of at least 100 pro-Mohamed Morsi supporters killed by state officials in an eight-hour-long massacre on Saturday morning – Egypt's second mass killing of Islamists in three weeks. In post-revolutionary Cairo, now more divided than ever after the toppling of Morsi on 3 July, the narrative of history is rarely straightforward. On Saturday the city was awash with claims and counterclaims about whether the bloody events had been provoked......
Some casualties reported seeing police or army snipers firing on protesters from buildings inside the nearby Al-Azhar University, and medics said the accuracy of the shooting suggested that snipers may have been in action.
"The injuries were very precise – which suggests they were shot by snipers," said Dr Mohamed Lotfy, in charge of the clinic's medical supplies. "There were bullet holes in the centre of the forehead and right in the back of the skull. It was not just shooting to injure. They were shooting to kill.""
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