Rasha Sadek records the testimonies of medical volunteers caught in the army's repeated attacks on field hospitals set up to treat injured protesters The Zeinhom Morgue forensic report concluded that Alaa Abdel-Hadi, 22, died after being shot in the head. The fifth year medical student had headed to Qasr Al-Aini Street field hospital at dawn after news broke that the demonstrators who had been staging a three-week sit-in in front of the Cabinet Office were being attacked by the army. His goal was to help the injured. Instead, Abdel-Hadi's own life ended in an ambulance on the way to Qasr Al-Aini Hospital. It was, his mother said, where he had dreamed of working once he graduated. In the immediate aftermath of the 25 January Revolution the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces insisted it "will never fire a single bullet at an Egyptian, no matter what the circumstances". It seems likely that Abdel-Hadi -- who had bravely volunteered to tend the wounded -- was murdered by the military police. He was not the only victim. By 4am on Monday the military crackdown on protesters in and around Tahrir Square had left two dead and 10 wounded according to the Ministry of Health. Volunteer doctors manning the field hospital set up at Omar Makram Mosque in Tahrir Square say the gunshot wounds they treated were from live ammunition. Two protesters treated at the field hospital say they were shot at by the military police. A third would probably have said the same had he not been killed by a gunshot to his skull. As morning broke some field hospital volunteers stood in Tahrir Square holding up the blood soaked clothes of the victims in silent protest at the killing of demonstrators. The field hospitals erected in and around Tahrir Square have saved countless lives since the beginning of the revolution in January. Now they have become a target for sustained attacks by the military police who by noon last Friday had set three ablaze, one by the Virgin Mary Church opposite the Cabinet Office, a second at the Dobara Palace Church in Rihan Street and the third at Omar Makram Mosque. By Saturday the three field hospitals had been destroyed. Mahmoud El-Toukhi, a 27-year-old volunteer doctor at Omar Makram told Al-Ahram Weekly that "military police attacked us at dawn, burned down what remained of the hospitals and chased and arrested volunteers. Many were beaten by the army. Soldiers then collected all the medical supplies and burned them. This is clear targeting of doctors by the military." El-Toukhi's account was verified by all the doctors present at the three hospitals. "Uniformed soldiers set medical supplies alight after they had chased and beaten many doctors," says Amr Adel, another Omar Makram volunteer. He told the Weekly that on Saturday they had received and treated hundreds of protesters with injuries to the head and eyes, including children as young as ten. Mohamed Fatouh, head of the Tahrir Doctors' Association, sent a plea for help from inside Omar Makram Mosque on Saturday night. "Fifteen doctors and nine injured, some in critical condition, are locked inside the mosque. We have been attacked by military forces and threatened with detention should we attempt to leave," he said. By Sunday the main field hospital had shifted inside the mosque, though the move offered scant protection. Soldiers attacked the hospital at least twice that day, assaulting doctors. Physician Amr Salah was "severely beaten by military soldiers who were kicking the doors with their boots in an attempt to get in". "When I told them I was a doctor they beat me with batons. I tried to tell them that as doctors we treat not only the protesters but anybody who needs help and that we had treated security personnel the other day. They beat me even more. There were seven or eight, hitting me until I was motionless and they thought I was dead." "An officer standing among the soldiers was egging them on to hit me more. It felt like he was cheering them on to the front line of a battlefield to attack Israelis. I could not believe he was encouraging Egyptian soldiers to beat Egyptian volunteer doctors." Following the attack Salah's head wounds required stitching and he was diagnosed with concussion. On Sunday Mohamed Hassan, 13, was sitting on the stairs leading to Omar Makram Mosque. There were four stitches beneath his right eye. He told the Weekly he had been hit by a stone thrown at him by the army the day before. "I wasn't throwing anything at the soldiers. I was standing there [at Qasr Al-Aini Street] because everybody else was," Hassan said. As the boy was sitting on the stairs a doctor came by and started to clean his wound and change the bandage. Volunteer doctors and assistants tend to all injuries, serious and less so -- including this reporter's nose, suspected of being fractured while escaping an army attack in Rihan Street -- with the same care. Fatma, a paramedic, explained that medical supplies are purchased from donations or are brought by the volunteering doctors themselves. Throughout the week sympathetic citizens delivered medicines, water, juice and food to the field hospitals. The Ministry of Health has stationed ambulance vehicles just off Rihan Street. Mohamed Hanafi, a paramedic, told the Weekly that the vehicles appeared Friday dawn. "Then the ministry sent 22 ambulance on Saturday and 27 on Sunday." Aleya Khalaf, head of emergency at Bulaq Hospital, confirmed Hanafi's account, adding that a number of mobile clinic vans and fully prepped surgery vehicles were available round the clock. The problem, she says, "is most injuries take place towards the end of Rihan Street at the intersection with Qasr Al-Aini which the ambulances cannot reach meaning that the injured must be brought to us". Most often than not they are carried to the waiting ambulances by motorcycles, whose drivers rush in to pick up the wounded and transport them to ambulances or one of the field hospitals. On Sunday the Ministry of Health issued a statement saying all injured will be treated at the expense of the state. A day earlier SCAF had declared that army hospitals were ready to receive the wounded. "They beat us then treat us," quipped one protester. The irony is unlikely to be lost on surgeon Karim Abdel-Halim who has posted a video detailing his four hours of torture "at the hands of the special military forces who were throwing rocks at protesters". Despite telling the soldiers that he was a doctor "they dragged me from the field hospital all the way to the Cabinet building where they beat me with batons and used electric shocks on my hands". "There were about 50 soldiers assaulting people. I was tied with a rope, between a seven-year-old boy and an elderly sheikh. They forced us to drink water mixed with mud. Those who refused were beaten with rods on their heads. Then we were taken to another building where cameras had been set up so they could film as they treated our wounds." By the time the Weekly went to print at least 14 had died and 815 wounded in the most recent clashes, according to the Ministry of Health.
