Nevine El-Aref remembers some of those killed in the course of the revolution "My son is a martyr. He and his colleagues sacrificed their lives for the sake of Egypt's freedom," says Magdi Hussein, father of the 21-year-old lawyer Ahmed, shot dead in Alexandria. "I will miss him." Hussein says that his son was not participating in the demonstrations but had gone out to look for his younger brothers who were. When the demonstrations reached Zein Al-Abidine Street in Moharram Beih area in Alexandria police snipers opened fire. They shot a 12-year- old boy who fell and died between Ahmed's arms, and then they shot Ahmed. "We are all Islam Bakir" is a website created by a friend of 22-year-old Islam Bakir. "A lovely smile is always drawn on his face. Despite the difficult life he lived he loved Egypt and never wanted to leave it": just one of the messages his friends have posted on the Internet. On 25 January he participated in the demonstration at Tahrir Square, standing his ground against police armed with rubber bullets. Just days later, on Friday 28 January, he was killed in the same place by police snipers who shot him five times in the back. "Islam was courageous. He chose to fight for his country unlike the rats who chose to stay home and watch and wait and see," says Ahmed El-Amin. On the same day Ahmed Bassyouni, a 31-year-old teacher at Helwan University's Faculty of Fine Arts and the father of two young children, was killed when he was shot in the head. An anonymous source told Al-Ahram Weekly that Umm Al-Masryeen Hospital had refused to hand the body to Bassyouni's family unless they reported that he had died in a car accident. Ministry of Health spokesman Abdel-Rahman Shahin denies the account. "We hand over all corpses to their families in order that they can be laid to rest," insists Shahin. Islam Raafat, 18, was killed by the white diplomatic car that ploughed into the protesters in Tahrir Square on the night of Friday 28 January. His corpse was released five days after he died. The car was one of 24 belonging to the American Embassy in Cairo that were stolen from a garage on Al-Qasr Al-Aini Street. Sally Zahran died on 2 February, when pro-Mubarak thugs attacked the square. On her way to Tahrir Square to join the protest she was assaulted and beaten around the head. She later died from a brain haemorrhage. Ahmed Ehab, a newly married 29-year- old, died on the so-called Day of Anger when he was shot in the chest. His friends say he had joined the protesters to ensure that his children would have a brighter future. Sixteen-year-old Seif Mustafa died while guarding his home next to the Madinet Nasr police station. Tharwat Mohamed, a soldier whose military service had just two months to run, was killed in Alexandria on Friday 28 January. His uncle told TV presenter Amr Adib that Tharwat was guarding the customs area in Alexandria when he was shot in the neck. His murderer turned out to be a police sniper positioned on a nearby roof. Ten-year-old Belal Ahmed was killed by a policeman in Rafah. Belal, says his father, was playing with his fiends in the garden in front of the family home when they heard an explosion at the police station next door. They ran to see what was happening when he was shot in the back. "This was done intentionally. It was not an accident," says Belal's father.
