Andrew Burton Photo

Account of an Attack

I had some shit happen yesterday, originally I had no desire to let anyone know. But after watching the news, realizing I was one of many, and that I was very lucky, I’ve decided I’ll write a small account of what happened: 1) Because it adds an account to what is occuring here, simply put it’s news. 2) I’m holed up the hotel right now, as of right now (9AM) I dont know a single journalist heading out on the ground today.

I guess I’ll start in the beginning of the day.

After sleeping at the Cairo airport (due to the curfew), I caught a cab at 6:30AM and headed to the hotel. Andrew Henderson and I grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel, bought SIM cards for our phones on the street, and headed out at around 10AM for the day. It was my first day on the ground, I was excited to be here, though was worried that I had missed the biggest events – Mubarak had said he would eventually step down and the most we were expecting was more protests, asking for Mubarak to step down sooner. I was happy to be with a friend who had already spent a day on the ground. The first thing we found was a fairly small, pro-Mubarak protest. We both photographed within the crowd for about 45 minutes, and things went well – people were passionate about getting in front of the camera, hoping their voices would be heard. There were no real issues during that time. After those 45 minutes, we emerged – we both had to go our separate ways on assignment.

I knew it would be dangerous to travel alone, but I needed to photograph specific locations for an assignment and Henderson had his own things to cover. I was told by a local that for now, downtown was one of the safest places to be. I spent the next three hours walking around, safely photographing various things for my assignment – the closed Egyptian Stock Exchange, the closed Central Bank, etc. I talked to numerous Egyptians who happily helped me find locations. Many people were very kind to me. I also wandered into Tahrir Square, where I found a slow moving crowd of anti-Mubarak protestors walking around. Everything was very calm, placid, safe. People smiled at me, journalists wandered about. No real action was taking place. I was on deadline, and hurried back to the hotel to transmit around 2PM.

At 4PM, I left the hotel and headed back towards Tahrir Square – the TV was reporting clashes between pro and anti Mubarak supporters. I was totally alone – no fixer, other photographers/journalists – while this was not necessarily a smart decision, it was the way all photographers had been traveling  - I had seen dozens of photographers roaming about alone – we would nod our heads at each other, ask if they knew of anything going on, and move on. Simply put, things had been safe. It took about 15 minutes to walk from my hotel to the square, and I made the walk with no qualms. As I moved through the thickening crowd, things seemed slightly more tense than earlier in the day. Before I got to where the fighting was taking place, I noticed a pro-Mubarak supporter painting slogans over anti-Mubarak graffiti.  I started to photograph him, but was suddenly grabbed from behind by a young man who also slapped his hand over my camera – he was very angry.

I immediately tried to walk away, out of the crowd. There was no reason for me to try to argue or fight, I figured I would reroute to Tahrir square through a different street. At this point, things got very hairy, very fast.

Within seconds, anti-Mubarak protestors saw me try to leave the crowd – they grabbed me and encouraged me to continue to walk towards to fighting. Pro-Mubarak supporters got very angry over this, and fighting broke out around me immediately.

Very suddenly 50% of the crowd started attacking me – kicking, punching and slapping. The other 50% (anti-Mubarak supporters) quickly encircled me to protect me. Five or six guys surrounded me and took many more blows than i did.  We tried to move away, out of the crowd, but the crowd had gotten very large, very quickly – we only moved about 100 yards, at best. Movement was slow and clunky, we were stumbling through the people attacking us – forcing our way through the crowd.   We were headed towards an Egyptian army tank and when we hit the it, the men positioned me with my back to the tank, squatting down. At this point,  I was pinned. People continued to kick, punch and grab at cameras.  Soldiers standing on top of the tank were waving pistols and screaming. I was fucking terrified. My shirt was ripped from my back, hands went into my pockets (the most they got was my CF cards), the men protecting me were looking at me screaming me, ‘you are safe, we are here for you, we will get you out of this.”

I only escaped when the soldiers on top of the tank literally ripped me out of the crowd, lifting me by the armpits. I was dumped head first inside the tank. My shit – cameras, cell phone, notepad – everything went flying out of my pockets as I landed amongst the soldiers. As I got myself turned around, I found myself surrounded by 14 Egyptian soldiers – young men my age, smiling at me. They scooted around, made a place for me to sit – helped me gather my shit. Everything was quiet – the transition from an angry mob scene to a calm but cramped interior tank happened very, very quickly. The soldiers were joking, laughing, making fun of me, they didn’t seem to care too much about what was going on outside. In the following hours that I sat inside the tank, we attempted to speak through broken english and ate food together. I tried to ask them why I was attacked – at the time I thought I had made a beginners mistake. They didn’t understand my question, and I only found out later how many other journalists were also attacked. I stayed there for two and a half hours talking with them while the protests continued. I didn’t know what to do – I was shaken and scared, knew that I didn’t want to head back outside alone, and the soldiers seemed to have no problem with me sitting there until things quieted down.  Later, around 7PM, when things had calmed down a bit (in the immediate vicinity – the fighting raged on through the night), a general escorted me out and got me in a cab back to my hotel.

I dont know what happened to the men that protected me. I owe them my life, or something close to it. I don’t know what would have happened to me without them. This is my first time in a situation like this. I was incredibly lucky. Outside, numerous journalists, photographers and friends were beaten, had their cameras smashed, hurt badly. I got very lucky, very fucking lucky.

It’s now Thursday morning. No journalists I know are heading outside at the moment. TV is only showing footage from rooftops – no footage from on the ground. Reporters on the ground are giving live reports from their phones. I have no idea what is going to happen.