EGYPT’S capital looks like a battlefield, with burned-out cars, streets littered with rubble and clouds of thick dark smoke billowing above the seat of government. In scenes unthinkable only a week ago when fear still gripped people, angry demonstrators chanted “Allahu Akbar! (God is greatest)” and “The people want the president out,” as they flooded Tahrir (Liberation) Square in downtown Cairo yesterday.
“Mubarak, go!” they urged President Hosni Mubarak, who has held power with an iron grip and under emergency laws for 30 years.
The anti-regime demonstrators defied curfews to keep up their demands, rejecting Mr Mubarak’s promises of a new government combined with reforms as too little, too late. “The president must go. It is the only thing we want. Mubarak must simply step down … Enough!” said Hassan, a 30-year-old demonstrator.
In a small mosque near Tahrir Square, hundreds of injured were being treated by dozens of doctors who set up a makeshift medical facility, stringing IVs from balustrades inside the prayer house.
“There are literally hundreds here; they’ve now set up sections so they can be treated with some privacy,” Aisha Hussein, a nurse and teacher, said. We have one dead definitely, who died on the spot. He died here inside the mosque. I gave him mouth-to-mouth; we injected him with adrenalin.”
Ms Hussein described numerous injuries, ranging from rubber-bullet wounds to broken bones.
“We have had eye injuries, face injuries, back injuries, arm injuries, everything. Broken arms, broken legs. It’s a complete disaster,” she said. Out in the street, demonstrator Ahmad showed a spent cartridge and said “the police are attacking the people; they regard us as the enemy.”
Riot police in black opened fire on roads between the ministry and Tahrir Square, where protesters hailed the army deployed on the streets with its tanks for largely keeping out of the confrontation.
“The people and the army are one,” they chanted at the square where branches of US fast food giants such as McDonalds, Pizza Hut and KFC were ransacked. “We will stay on the streets as long as he (Mubarak) doesn’t leave power,” shouted Ali Barra, a medical student. “It could take one year or two years but we will stay.”
Young Islamist militants, secularists, as well as onlookers drawn in from the impoverished suburbs, converged in central Cairo, a sprawling city on the Nile with more than 20 million inhabitants. “Those guys there, they’re bandits, robbers, I don’t know where they come from but they look as if they had escaped from prison,” said one protester pointing to a group of young men.
Residents hauled metal barriers off the streets around Tahrir Square, while crowds tackled the charred car carcasses blocking traffic downtown.
Hundred of thousands of people flooded the streets of Egypt’s main cities after the traditional weekly prayer on Friday, marking a day of unprecedented protests in the most populous country of the Arab world. Five days of clashes had cost at least 92 lives by Saturday, with thousands injured.
Police, a target of demonstrators since Tuesday, initially stayed out of downtown Cairo yesterday. But armoured cars and tanks were deployed on roads to Tahrir Square, the interior ministry and around state television.
“The people have overcome their fear. Nothing can stop them now. I just hope there will not be looting,” said Hajjaj, a taxi-driver puffing a cigarette as he threaded his way through Cairo where open petrol stations were at a premium. A supermarket owned by the French retail giant Carrefour was ransacked in Maadi, a small oasis district on the outskirts of Cairo largely populated by wealthy expatriates.
Looting also spread across several areas of Cairo, parts of which were almost unrecognisable after five days of mass protests. In the posh suburb of Heliopolis, residents of one building used ladders and wooden boards to barricade shut the entrance after being warned that looters were roaming the streets near Mubarak’s presidential palace.
One resident, a former army general, said he was ready to use his gun if necessary. Traffic police stayed at home yesterday, with young men in jeans directing traffic in front of the interior ministry. Looters have been taking advantage of the light police presence in many areas to ransack dozens of stores.
“There’s no more police. Thieves have escaped from prisons. I’ve never seen such a thing before in my life,” sighed the owner of a boutique.
