ICC Note: On October 9, 2011 the Egyptian army attacked a massive crowd of Christian protestors in Cairo killing 22 people and leaving many more injured. Four years ago now, the memory still haunts those who experienced the massacre. Coptic Egyptians have second class citizenship and have suffered much brutality from the government especially under the Muslim Brotherhood. Andraous Oweida, an Egyptian Copt and father of two, recalls what transpired in the Maspero neighborhood in 2011.

06-24-2015 Egypt (Crux Now): Andraous Oweida, a 44-year-old construction worker and father of two, has vivid memories of the night of Oct. 9, 2011, when the Egyptian army assaulted a massive crowd of Christian protestors in the Maspero neighborhood of Cairo, killing 22 people and leaving dozens severely wounded.

Oweida was at the front of the march that night, officially estimated at around 70,000 people, many carrying Coptic crosses, icons, and lighted candles. They were demanding full equality before the law as Egyptian citizens, a long-cherished dream that had led many of the same Christians to be among the protagonists of the Tahrir Square protests that triggered the Arab Spring nine months before.

At one point, Oweida said, armored personnel carriers began plowing into the crowd, crushing people to death who fell in their way. He tripped amid the chaos and was trampled under a resulting stampede, leaving his torso severely bruised and unable to walk under his own power.

Oweida had to be carried to a makeshift battlefield hospital erected nearby, close to the massive headquarters building of Egypt’s public television service.

“No one imagined the situation would develop as it did,” Oweida said on Tuesday. “These mini-tanks were going toward the crowds … Some people fainted out of fear, and others threw themselves into the Nile to escape being crushed.”

A member of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church, Oweida said he had several friends killed that night. Four years later, no one has ever been prosecuted for their deaths, and several of the officers who led the army at the time have been rewarded with more senior positions.

“It makes me very angry,” Oweida said, who insisted he wants justice done, but grimly predicted he may never live to see it.

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