US citizens yesterday were urged to get out of Egypt — now — as President Hosni Mubarak’s embattled regime ratcheted up the pressure on hundreds of thousands of defiant protesters who continued to mass in the streets and flaunt the state-imposed curfew.
The lawlessness took on deadly new dimensions across the country, as gangs attacked at least four prisons, freeing thousands of convicts.
While the official death toll after five days of protests stood at 97, witness reports suggested hundreds more have died.
State Department officials were hastily arranging for Americans to fly to “safe havens” in Europe.
Tal Eisenzweig, 21, of Princeton, NJ, was among a group of local students who found themselves stranded at the Cairo airport as they tried to flee.
“It’s too dangerous” to try to return home in Cairo, she said. “Things are getting much darker and much worse.”
Srikant Duggirala, 30, an internist from Murray Hill in Manhattan, was among the lucky ones to get out. He flew into Kennedy Airport from Cairo aboard Egypt Air Flight 985, which arrived in New York at 7:40 last night.
“I’m thrilled to be back and safe at home!” said Duggirala, who had been vacationing in Egypt with pals.
Another passenger, a 35-year-old US soldier from Fort Leavenworth, Kan,, who had been visiting relatives, said, “I fear for my family members, who are [still] standing outside their homes to protect them.
“The police just disappeared,” said the soldier, who gave only his first name, Khaled.
Demonstrators gathered most prominently in Cairo’s Tahrir Square with Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei.
Also there were members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which wants Egypt to become an Islamist state.
Mubarak rattled sabers by closing roads around the city with tanks and sending F-16 fighter jets on menacing, noisy overflights of the square.
One good bit of news had a Long Island tie.
Jim Burke of Port Jefferson said he learned yesterday that his daughter, Kyleen, 20, who was in Cairo with a college group, is safe and sound.
Additional reporting by Lachlan Cartwright, Reuven Fenton, Vinita Singla and Wire Services