Anger at the SCAF was palpable during Monday's funeral procession of 17 victims killed in clashes between Coptic protesters and the army on Sunday, writes Khaled Dawoud The smell of death was strong outside the morgue at the Coptic Hospital where the bodies of most of those killed in Sunday's clashes with the army in front of the state-run TV Building were being kept. Amid the pushing and shoving from anguished families and hundreds of sympathisers, I suddenly found myself in front of a body as it was still being washed by priests. The mother of the dead young man was wailing and slapping her face, crying "he was only 19... he was only 19". Outside the morgue a wooden coffin decorated with a cross awaited her son, Sobhi Nazeer. His picture was placed at the front, an ordinary young Egyptian in a baseball cap with a silver chain around his neck. A funeral procession was scheduled to start from the Coptic Hospital to nearby Abbasiya Cathedral at 1pm on Tuesday, hoping to catch up with funeral services already being held by Pope Shenouda. That proved impossible. The procession was delayed by more than 10 hours as families and human rights activists insisted that autopsies be performed. Families were unhappy with the reports of Ministry of Health forensic doctors whose initial examinations they denounced as superficial. The cause of death of the majority of the victims was given as either "sudden heart failure" of "involvement in a street fight". The mood outside the hospital was extremely hostile to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and its commander, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. In the absence of accurate details on how events on Sunday developed, the people in front of the hospital were holding Tantawi responsible for the tragedy. Daniel was a well known activist who had taken part in the 25 January Revolution that removed former president Hosni Mubarak. Many of the Muslims who had come to the hospital were his friends. He was also a member of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, one of scores of new political parties that emerged after the revolution. His coffin was the only one of the 17 to be draped in Egypt's flag. After brief funeral services were performed at the Cathedral after midnight Monday, friends and family members drove his coffin in a minibus to Tahrir Square. Many of the families at the Coptic Hospital demanded detailed autopsies be performed by independent doctors to replace those issued by the Ministry of Health. Others had to be persuaded by lawyers and human rights activists. At 5pm on Monday a team of doctors finally arrived at the morgue but refused to enter until the crowds were cleared. Coptic activists, nurses and hospital staff convinced the crowd to move back and the doctors began their work. Relatives spent hours waiting for news but the only information coming from the morgue concerned numbers. "They've finished four bodies, now there are 13 left," one man in front announced. The crowd outside the hospital was growing by the hour. By late afternoon Ramses Street was blocked. The febrile atmosphere was not helped by occasional false reports that shooting had broken out near the Cathedral in Abbasiya. Graphic stories on how the victims lost their lives were being told by angry Copts, all claiming to be eyewitnesses. The most dramatic details concerned two armoured vehicles said to have intentionally run over protesters. Videos of the vehicles have been posted on Facebook and YouTube. Many in the crowd in front of the hospital were critical of the state-owned media, particularly television. Following the autopsies hospital workers called the name of each victim. Family members then carried an empty coffin to the morgue amid chants from the crowd. The coffins were then laid next to one another in preparation for the march to the Cathedral. At 11.30pm the gates of the Coptic Hospital were opened wide for the first time since the day began. Relatives carried the coffins on their shoulders. Despite fears that clashes might erupt during the nearly 25-minute march to the Cathedral, the day ended peacefully. The priest who performed the service announced that the victims would be buried together in a graveyard in 6 October City.
