posted
sorry folks but this has been on my mind for 2 days now. Yesterday we were in Tahrir Sq and were walking past a few beggar stalls. As we got close to one a seller pounced on a 3-4 year old boy, beating him to the ground with her fists. I mean beating. Everyone around and the other sellers just stood and watched!! After about 20 seconds my hubby pulled her off him as she pounded his head to the pavement. He was as you can imagine screaming like a banshee. I ran across and grabbed him and shielded him whilst my hubby spoke to her in arabic. Still everyone was standing around staring. I first though he's pinched something from her stall?? Then he grabbed my hubby's leg and wouldnt let go. A soldier came and tried to prise him from my hubby's leg and she launched another attack. I then took the kid and put him behind me while my husband spoke to the soldier. She was screaming and took her shoe off and hit me with it to try to get me to let go of him. I covered him as best I could and looked in vain for some help to try to get her to stop. Then the soldier spoke to her and she moved away from us. The child was now screaming his head off and would not let my leg go. We were then standing in a large group of sellers and pedestrians and not a single person seemed to bother. I tried to get his hand off my leg to give him to the soldier and he screamed even more. Then the woman lifted up her table chucked the contents onto the ground and ran at us with the table trying to hit the child on the head. It was then I noticed the whole right side of his head had no hair! I thought 'oh my god this kids had a head operation and has had his head shaved? the soldier grabbed her and pulled her to the side and again spoke to her. I am standing there with a screaming child standing between myself and my hubby and then my hubby tells me what the other sellers are saying!!! They are all saying in arabic I later learned to leave him, she's magnoon ( mad ) and her son. apparently she does this every day to attract attention so that pedestrians give the kid money to stop him crying!!!! No way!!! Jose..............this was no act, she was beating the **** out of him and trying to whack him with the table over me. No way would anyone give her or him money. It seemed to me that not a single person was willing to lift a finger to help. To protect the kid from the beating, or silence the screams or the woman. Has anyone else seen her? Is this true? Apparently the rest of the sellers say so! In the end I managed to calm the kid down and prise his tiny fingers off me to hand him to the soldier. It broke my heart!!! I felt so bad leaving this baby in the midst of these uncaring people. Even the soldier seemed to have no emotion. As we walked away the sellers just made the usual Magnoon sign on their heads and laughed!!!! I couldnt sleep last night for thinking about the life of this kid. I am so upest and dont know what to do. My son who watched everything with total horror, asked me what he had done!!! Where would the soldier take him? We drove back in almost total silence home. I'm lost as what to think or do? Any ideas folk. Dont say the usual forget it this is egypt!! This is not working today. Posts: 1500 | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
ohh tooti you broke my heart. i would feel the same as well, i don't know what you can do though to help? so don't feel too bad. i saw few seen like this as well, where we watched with horror. sometimes i think if i have money i would help each child i can see in the street not just give them few pounds.
Posts: 816 | From: london | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
o my word i say word noit god i cant say my sorry o ypou i so sad you feel and see thois shame. i no i love an englis girl and she se this shame i feel, she see her future and she run so fast.she leave nme and what oi am and what i kno and what i sm. and i ams ad in my hrt that i i am not this eing athat i am noit this way. i am egyptian biut i am NOT UREVGBtian way
Posts: 9 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
ok i re read an i tipe slow, i sorry i am not so good at english but i trying. i spell mor4e slow now
Posts: 9 | Registered: Aug 2006
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Well if you really have the time and would like to get to know Egypt well, you can start by looking for something like Child Services or something like that. Then you can ask them if it is at all possible to remove the kid from the care of his ill mother and put him somewhere else, maybe with relatives or even adoption.
I'm not saying any of that is possible but I guarantee it will be an eye opener and who knows you may find a way to help him or other like him.
Posts: 140 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
How distressing. How heartbreaking. I am coming to work in Egypt in September for an organisation called Caritas. They have branches in Cairo and Alexandria and have projects on street children, and may be able to offer advice. You must have felt like just picking up the child and running off with him. It must have been so awful and I feel upset just reading it without having seen it first hand.
Posts: 233 | From: uk | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
Thanks everyone. I'm feeling better as the days go by. It was the most awful heartwrenching feeling prising his hands from our legs and putting them in the soldiers! I just wanted to take him home and scrub the hell out of him and see what was underneath all the dirt. His face was so dirty the tears made tracks all down his little face................anyway I will look up Caritas and see if they cn do something for this poor kid.
Posts: 1500 | Registered: Dec 2005
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