Doaa El-Bey reports on the killing abroad of two more Egyptians Although the two were separate incidents, the killing of two more Egyptian citizens, this time in Greece and Nigeria, is raising concern among Egyptian expats who number in the millions. The body of a contractor, Ashraf Abdel-Hafiz, was found in Greece on Saturday, dismembered and parcelled into three suitcases. The killer remains at large and the motive remains a mystery. Abdel-Hafiz lived in Greece for 13 years. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry which is following the developments called on Greek authorities to bring the killers to justice as soon as possible. The killing came two days after another Egyptian engineer, Sami Barakat, was killed in south Nigeria. His body arrived in Cairo on Sunday. Barakat had been working as head of a project to construct a road in south Nigeria. He was shot dead after gunmen blocked the road he was working on. One bodyguard was killed while another is in critical condition, as is Barakat's driver. Attorney-General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud ordered an autopsy of the two bodies to determine the cause of death. He also asked the Foreign Ministry for updates. The ministry's performance was, however, criticised by Barakat's family which complained that mistakes in the documents and shipping operations caused a delay in the arrival of his body. The Foreign Ministry blamed the delay on airline conditions. The two incidents, together with the killing of two Egyptians in Sudan and one in Lebanon earlier this month, are being viewed as unrelated incidents. Mahmoud Shukri, a former diplomat and a writer, told Al-Ahram Weekly that while the deaths were "very sad incidents, they are also individual, criminal events. Each incident had its own motives that are related to the person and the place he was living in. It is not a deliberate killing that is related to a certain identity or nationality. The gang in Nigeria, for instance, kills to rob." Shukri criticised the newspapers and parties which he said are using the incidents as an opportunity to attack the legislative authority and the government, and heap all the blame on the Foreign Ministry. "The ministry is responsible for protecting the interests of Egyptians living abroad, not to guard each and every individual," Shukri added. Two weeks ago, an Egyptian butcher, Mohamed Musallam, was brutally killed by the residents of a small village in Lebanon after being accused of killing four members of the village. Hundreds of villagers confronted the police, took Musallam by force, killed him, stripped him of most of his clothes and impaled him on a lamp post where he stayed until police arrived. Two suspects were arrested in connection with the murder but no details were released about the outcome of the investigation. Last week, two Egyptian soldiers were shot dead and three injured in Darfur, Sudan. They were part of the UN/African Union UNAMID peacekeeping forces stationed in Darfur. The Sudanese authorities arrested two men suspected of the killing and are still searching for the rest of the seven-member group responsible for the attack. However, fighting between the central government in Sudan and the rebel movement in Darfur is likely to make the investigation more difficult.
