CAIRO: As coffins begin to run out at a Cairo morgue, the number of those killed by Egypt's military and police in the past two days continues to rise. Currently, the official number stands at over 37, according to medical sources speaking to Bikyamasr.com on Monday early afternoon. The number is expected to continue to rise as more and more victims arrive at field hospitals in Cairo's Tahrir square, with what doctors confirm as shotgun wounds. “There are so many and lots of people in bad condition,” Islam Abdel Rahman, a doctor at the Omar Makram mosque's field hospital, told Bikyamasr.com. He said that many of the severely wounded are being transported to other hospitals for emergency care and surgeries. But the violence appears to have only emboldened Egyptians, and not just in Cairo, where tens of thousands have daily come out demanding “the ouster of the Field Marshal,” in reference to the head of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) Hussein Tantawi. In Damietta, thousands marched through the streets in defiance of the military. Their march comes only a week after violent protests left at least two people killed in the city after residents became angered over a factory's environmental toll on civilians. In Alexandria, clashes have taken place between demonstrators and police near the security headquarters in the coastal town. At least one person has been killed in those clashes. Elsewhere, protests are becoming larger and larger, where a few thousand demonstrated against military rule in Mansoura, in Egypt's northern Nile Delta region. The violence in Cairo, which has seen the military use massive amounts of tear gas and violence against protests, is galvanizing much of the country. With less than one week until elections, many wonder if voting can, and will, take place. Either way, protesters like Ahmed, a young man shot by a rubber bullet and beaten by military police on Sunday evening, “we will continue until the military is not in power.” BM
