'Bloodshed in Cairo extinguishes all hope'

The sun had just risen in Cairo and protesters were waking up when they spotted the armoured cars and security forces moving into position.

The military and police encircled the Cairo-based sit-ins and blocked off the exits. By 7am, the onslaught had begun. For 12 hours, bullets and tear gas rained down on men, women and children inside the main pro-Morsi camp in Nasr City. Gunfire crackled through the side streets as security forces fired at anyone attempting to enter. Bystanders and journalists crouched behind cars: the quiet residential area was turned into a war zone.

Across the capital, the Giza camp fell in a few hours and the bulldozers moved in. The battle had been short but bloody: demonstrators were filmed fighting police with their own guns. People were killed across the country as violence erupted in multiple cities, making it the bloodiest day yet in Egypt’s turbulent modern history.

Paramedics said most of the injuries were gunshot wounds to the head and chest. Ill-equipped field hospitals bowed under the pressure.

The violence took on a sectarian dimension: Islamist supporters of Morsi made the Christians, who they see as siding with the military, pay for the crackdown. They torched churches, ransacked Coptic schools and raided businesses nationwide. The churches burned all night.

There had been high hopes for Egypt’s new transitional government, The president and security forces had promised reconciliation, saying the Muslim Brotherhood would be included in the country’s political road map. When the decision was made to clear the protesters, due to “security threats”, it was to be a gradual and peaceful siege, following two disastrous attacks by police and the army on Morsi supporters in July.

Even the infamous interior ministry seemed on message: inviting human rights groups to “observe” the operation. But the images of bullet-riddled bodies of slain men and women quickly extinguished the idea of a socially just and peaceful Egypt.

Meanwhile, the government cracked under the strain. Mohamed ElBaradei, vice-president for foreign affairs, who had vowed that talks with the Brotherhood were under way, promptly resigned. Yet the social democrat Prime Minister Hezam Beblawi said the bloody crackdown was “necessary” and that security forces had shown “restraint”. In Washington and in Europe, officials watched with horror from the sidelines.

Now, Egypt’s streets are unnaturally quiet: citizens under curfew are glued to their television sets as the war of information begins. There is little hope for the democratic future the Egyptians fought for in the 2011 revolution, with fresh bloodshed on the streets.