Metro

New York student’s firsthand account of hell in Cairo

Swenson, 23, of the Lower East Side is a former student at up state Bard College who now ma jors in journalism at the Ameri can University in Cairo. He was there when the chaos broke out and left the country for Dubai only yesterday.

CAIRO — This city has become a slaughterhouse.

I saw police shoot two people to death Friday. And I was shot at the next day.

My room at the Sun Hostel overlooks Tahrir Square.

I’d see police roll in, cowboy style. They’d fire a bunch of tear gas, and then they’d use shotguns with ball bearings in them. They’d fire without regard for anyone.

The police killed the two protesters with the ball bearings. One of the dead men had been pushing a trash bin. He stepped out from behind it to try to throw a rock — and a policeman just shot him with his shotgun.

One of his friends came over and dragged the body away.

Other protesters were saved by using trash bins to shield themselves.

The next day, they wrapped both bodies in flags and marched them through the square.

Daily survival is a struggle.

There is very little food. Nothing is really open. I had to get out and get food, because I hadn’t eaten for hours.

I went outside at midnight. And I saw the bullet that just missed me.

I heard it, and then I saw it ricochet off a police barricade. I ran back to my hotel, and I was indoors from then on. I kept hearing the firing and the ambulances coming.

I know for a fact that hundreds of people have died. A photojournalist at my hotel went to the hospital, and people grabbed him and said, “Take a picture of the dead right now, because no one knows what’s going on.”

He saw bodies stacked on top of each other — hundreds of them.

I saw a police officer in the square when a bunch of people were coming toward him, and a stray dog got into the path. He shot the dog. He just shot the dog right in front of him.

It’s madness. That was a policeman. He’s supposed to be the person protecting us.

In every direction, there were things on fire. There were riot vans on fire along the street where the Ministry of Justice is. A pickup truck was on fire along the entrance to Garden City, where all the embassies are. Another fire started right in front of the Egyptian Museum.

There was so much smoke in the air that it was hard to see. On the balcony, I kept coughing. I’ve had headaches from all the tear gas.

And even the injured aren’t safe. People are attacking the hospitals. I don’t know if they’re protesters or plainclothes thugs working for the police.

It’s hard to tell who is police and who is not.

The police have these mercenaries — thugs whom they have paid under the table for years to help do their dirty work on the streets.

So when people attack the hospital or open up a prison or break into the museum and steal mummy heads, it’s hard to say if they’re police, mercenaries or protesters trying to start more trouble.

People were saying that mercenaries started some of the fires to make it look like the protesters are more out of control than they actually are.

Adding to the bedlam and mass hysteria, looters are prowling the streets.

ATM machines have been ripped off walls; diamond stores are being broken into. I’ve never seen such destruction.

I haven’t really slept for days.

At night, I’d hear the police shots go off. There are snipers on top of a lot of the buildings. I was walking along the street and found multiple bullets on the ground.

The army is not taking action.

I met a guy named Mustafa who was picked up by the police when he was just walking home.

He was put in a van, driven three hours outside of Cairo to the desert and held in an underground prison along with about 80 other people, he said. It was a bunker with one window and very little food.

They had beaten him, he said. He had a large, stitched gash on his face and nose.

He told me they were trying to kill him. After three days, they gave him medical attention, and they told him, “If anyone talks about this, we’ll know and we’ll go after your family.”

I’m not a religious person, but when I flew to Dubai at 1 p.m. [yesterday], I felt that it was under grace of God.

It was absolute chaos in the airport — everyone was trying to get out. I don’t know if the airport will even be standing in the next couple of days.

People were picking up their suitcases and stepping over the metal detectors because there was such hysteria to get on a plane and get out.