The following is a true email received by a British citizen currently residing in Alexandria, the second largest city in Egypt. She is a teacher, who moved to the country to teach English to young Egyptians. The email, below is a truthful document that was sent to friends on Thursday February 10, describing the events of the current riots surrounding the reign of President Mubarak. Names of the people involved have been changed to protect their identities. Nothing else has been changed. Please note, this is a true accurate account and I have received special permission from the writer to publish it online.
"Firstly, big apologies for the big group email but I'm being lazy and thought I would update everyone at the same time! Thanks for everyone's messages and concern over the last few weeks. Nothing like starting married life with a bang!!!
At this point it was all very peaceful and we didn't feel threatened at all. That evening however the phone networks were taken down and so we had no way of contacting anyone. The next day, Friday, the government also took down all internet connection in an attempt to curb potential protests. After morning prayers though, the first major protests took place in Alex, Cairo and Suez. By 5pm that afternoon we were advised of a curfew being put in place and I was stock piling buckets of water in our flat as there was a rumour the water was going to be turned off too! That night was relatively quiet in our area although not downtown, but the next day it really started to kick off. It's hard to know how much of the rumours we hear are true or not, we hear that prisoners were deliberately released by police to scare the public, we hear that the secret police had a lot to do with the violence that then ensued.... whatever is the case we know for certain that the protesters had burnt out all police stations during the night on Friday and that the police fleed and were nowhere to be seen.
The police stations were raided and weapons of all kinds were quickly out on the street. David and I moved across a few streets to stay with Paul & Sandra as they have a tv and so we were able to watch some news coverage and find out more of what was going on. That first Saturday night was the most scary as at first we didn't understand what was going on, the curfew came into place at 4pm and as soon as that happened there were large groups of men out in the street armed with any kind of weapon you can imagine from baseball bats, machetes to rifles and hand pistols. There was a lot of shouting and fighting and gun fire. We saw some horrendous beatings of people, but as we listened to the men shouting we started to understand that these were local people who had formed their own 'security' neighbourhood watch groups and the people they were grabbing were trying to loot shops and break into apartments. Basically that situation developed over the next few hours to be the most organised system of residents looking after their own that I have ever seen or imagined. The men set up road blocks, check points and a one way system through our neighbourhood so that any strangers to the area could be spotted and checked. They have been doing this day in, day out until now. They have a system of signals, wear home made arm bands to identify themselves to the area and have a set call for attention when there is trouble so that they are all supporting each other. There was a very bizarre moment when I was stood on the balcony looking down into the street and a tank drove down the street below and parked up!! Since then we have had tanks and soldiers stationed around the area working alongside these 'neighbourhood watch' guys.
A truck of men with swords tried to break into an apartment block near ours and we could hear gun fire for about half an hour straight. This was the way for most of the first week. All across the city there was gun fire, explosions, nobody sleeping and massive protests. We could hear the protesters marching past on their way down town to the main square. We never ventured down there but the people I know who joined the protests described them as peaceful until the police started to intervene and then the violence escalated. I have seen children with rifles, men making petrol bombs, dodged bullets bouncing off the balcony as shots were fired in the air to scare looters, and even got caught on a street with a man who fired his gun just next to me! We were hearing all sorts of rumours about the British government advising people to leave, but with no internet and no phones we had no way of finding out or booking a flight if we wanted to! Having not slept for four nights and the situation spiralling David and I decided when the phone network came back up that we would try to go somewhere else. We managed to get a flight to Dubai and arrived there last Tuesday night. It was really emotional packing a suitcase as at that point nothing was certain and we thought we were leaving for good. Given an hour and one suitcase it was very stressful trying to decide what to pack! Still, it did show me that whilst I am often very materialistic, when it came to it I was able to walk out the door with a few sentimental items but put the rest down to 'stuff'!
Things are ok, food is available although expensive, there is no money available yet, no cigarettes (that's one way to make me quit!), the internet seems to be back up and working ok, the phone network is still being a bit sketchy. Our water keeps periodically going off and the rubbish situation is getting pretty dire! There are piles of it everywhere and the smell is horrendous, but the people are doing what they can to bag it up and clear it into piles whilst they wait for some kind of collection service to resume.
The road blocks are gradually reducing and the men patrolling the streets are becoming fewer. In the day it feels relatively safe although things are all a little odd as people begin to return to normal life around the mess of the 'revolution'. Where I've ventured I've seen ransacked shops, burnt out vehicles and police stations but also people trying to get on with things, like the helpful people who have taken over the traffic direction after the disappearance of the traffic police!
So we are safe and well, I even went down to work yesterday as it had reopened and caught up with my friends there (they were very surprised to see me!). Harry's school is hoping to re-open on Sunday. The curfew is still in place and we still hear some gun shots (I stood next to a man yesterday who was trying to conceal a big gun in his trousers, he wasn't very successful!) but things are sooooooooooooo much calmer and safer than they were. It just remains to see what happens tomorrow as I hear rumours that there will be big protests again after morning prayers. Generally the protesters are all peaceful and do not want violence, it is only when the police and secret police step in that the massive problems have happened so hopefully the powers that be have twigged that now and will leave the protesters alone to demonstrate peacefully.... otherwise it will end up like last week again when it felt very much like the brink of civil war. Fingers crossed we are still a very long way off that!
There we go, sorry for the long email - you know me, never one for saying things concisely!!! Hope you are all well and I will be in touch again soon."
