Another black day! Yesterday, Egypt was having a national holiday, Sham an Nessim, just few days after the Coptic Easter, which means that many Egyptians were in Dahab [1] as well as foreigners. At about 19:15 local time, three different explosions rocked the tourist town of Dahab. It was reported that at least 23 dead and up to 150 people were injured.
Condolences, sadness, condemnations and anger are floating all over the Egyptian blogsphere. Some blogger wonder what's keeping the Egyptian president [2] from firing the Interior minister.
Ibn ad Dunya from Fustat blog said [3]:
I would think that an imadiate result would be the sacking of the Minister of Interior, Habib al Adly. it’s unprecedented in recent history that a minister of Interior gets to keep his portfolio after three major terrorist attacks. Usually the president’s paticience is not that long.
Free Soul is depressed [4]:
It is enough to listen to the news everyday to get you into deep depression, I don’t know how to express my emotions but it seems like I am lost.
It seems the ethics I have has no real meaning, they are nonsense, they don’t have any meaning but in my fake world, but in the real outer world they mean nothing, they don’t exist.
Free Soul was not the only sad person. Zeinobia also was going to cry twice [5]:
First time when I saw the Judge Mohamed Hamza in the Prime Time “10 O'clock ” in an exclusive hit interview from the Cleopatra hospital, the Head of the North Cairo Court was attacked by the Police forces yesterday Morning in front of the Judges Club !!
Second Time when I saw the victims of Dahab ‘s photos on the Egyptian National TV among them, a young baby , just months , seems to me not Egyptian but Foreigner , I couldn't take it any more , it is just a little angel that did nothing wrong except being in the wrong place and wrong time
This is the saddest Spring day ever
and this is the saddest Sinai Liberation day, some one wants to kill our celebration deliberately.
Why during feasts? Why three times blasts happen in 6/10 (October war) and 23/7 (the revolution) and now 25/4 (Sinai liberation)? Free Soul said [4].
There is a fear in Egypt that Sinai [6] Bedouins [7] will be main suspects/victims as happened before. DNA is not ready to believe this happening again and calls all of this as lies [8]:
The bombings in Dahab didn’t happen. It’s all lies. The terrorists haven’t won again. Our tourism industry is doing great, and it’s well on it’s way to recovery from last year’s fiasco. The Bedouins have nothing to do with this. It isn’t a coincidence that this bogus piece of news came out at the same time it did last year. We shouldn’t expect anything to happen in July – another Red Sea high season. Nobody died, nobody got hurt. There’s nothing to see here. Move along.
Along the same concept, Ibn ad Dunya said that government denial of possible al-Qaida involvement is to save tourism industry [3]:
Another development will most probably be mass arests of suspects, and the government will do anything to say that this was not al Qaida, that it was homegrown, anything to save the tourism industry. In fact i already heard some official saying that this had no connection whatsoever with any of the recent attacks.
On the other hand, Maryanne thinks that if Sinai Bedouins has anything to do with these blasts, it is government to blame [9]. Sinai Bedouins lacks everything. Education, medication, development, etc.:
But has anyone considered sharing the benefits of development with the local families? Very few. With all of the money flowing through Sinai, very little has stayed there to benefit the Bedouin who barely manage to exist in their beautiful hell. No schools, no training, no hospitals. What are the children here expected to do in the future in this situation? How are children who have no material assets, no chance to learn the skills needed in the increasingly urban society that we have here, going to manage as adults who have no possibility of employment?
Why do we need to look abroad for the perpetrators? As the government has said, this is a local problem but it is a very serious one that needs attention.
The Egyptian Arabic language blogsphere equally critical on their government. The economical consequences are drastic. Mohammad Rabie describes the situation in his words [10]:
عنده مكتب هندسي في دهب ، باقيله سنة تقريبا فاتح ، المكتب بيجيب دخل شهري كويس ، الى جانب الدخل من القاهرة ، عبد الرحمن كان بيفكر يجيب شقة و يدفع المقدم من التحويشة ، و باقي الأقساط هايسددها من مكتب دهب ، انهاردة صرف نظر عن موضوع الشقة
محمود
شريك الأولاني في المكتب ، عنده شغله في القاهرة بس شغل دهب فيه حركة أكتر ، و برضه بيساعد في المصاريف ، انهارده بيفكر يفض الشركة و يرجع للقاهر
He has an engineering office at Dahab, it's been a year since he started and the office is returning good monthly income beside his other business at Cairo. He was planning to pay a down payment to buy a flat from his savings and then pay the monthly installments from his Dahab office income. Today, he gave up his plans to buy the flat.
Mahmood
He is Abdulrahman partner. He also has another business at Cairo, but Dahab office returns more income for him. Today, he is thinking in dissolving the company with Abdulrahman and return back to Cairo.
Mohammad Rabie then closes his post with wonders. He said [10]:
Ahmad also thinks that all what is happening is due to governmnet's wrong priorities [11]: