CAIRO - Over the dead bodies of around 400 Egyptian martyrs, revolutionaries toppled the regime of long-serving President Hosni Mubarak. However, while the story is almost over for the families of those martyrs whose bodies have been buried, many families are still waiting for any news about their missing relatives. Among these grieving families is that of 37-year old Ziyad Bakri, who was found dead in a Cairo's morgue six weeks after the protests. "We used to refer to Ziyad as missing until last Saturday, when we got a phone call from the family of another martyr, who lived near us. They told us to go and personally examine the bodies in the Zeinhom Morgue," says Ahmed Bakri, Ziyad's father, adding that the morgue had got the name of the other martyr wrong. "We went to Zeinhom, where we were shocked to discover eleven bodies which hadn't been identified. One of them was Ziyad's," adds his heartbroken father. “A DNA test confirmed that Ziyad was a martyr of the January 25 revolution. Let me tell the whole world. This is an honour for his family.” His grieving father adds that the other bodies in the morgue have all been buried in a Cairo cemetery, as the authorities were unable to identify them. Ziyad, a father of three, worked as a graphic designer in the Cairo Opera House. His little children thought their father had gone away but would come back again. "If my father was killed, we want revenge," says Ziyad's eldest child, Habiba, 11. Former Minister of Interior Habib el-Adly and four of his aides, as well as hundreds of policemen, have been arrested and are being probed on suspicion of shooting dead the peaceful protesters. The 18-day protests, which forced Mubarak to resign, left nearly 390 people martyred and more than 1,000 more injured. Most of them were under 40 years old. This death toll increased yesterday, when another injured man died in a military hospital. "Dozens more may die. However, we hope the revolution will achieve what our martyred sons were hoping for," says Amm Abdou Bedawi, whose son, Mohamed, was buried in the Delta Governorate of Kafr el-Sheikh. All across Egypt, you can see pictures of martyrs and many roads have already been named after them. But this is not enough for these gems. "Our sons were the heart of the nation and they deserve much more respect from the whole world," says Amm Abdou with tears in his eyes.
