FRANKFURT: An Australian couple escaped being bashed to death after they responded to a Facebook appeal to donate blood for injured protesters in strife-torn Cairo.
Brendan Clowry, 29, a physical education teacher, and his wife - who is of Egyptian background and chose not to be named - survived a ferocious attack by pro-Egyptian government thugs who threatened to murder them while attacking their car with iron bars and cement posts.
Mr Clowry, accompanied by his wife and her mother, landed in Frankfurt on a Qantas evacuation charter flight on Friday after an 11th-hour dash to meet consular officials after the attack.
Advertisement: Story continues below
Terra firma ... Brendan Clowry and his wife, who does not wish to be named,
arrive in Frankfurt. Photo: Penny Bradfield
They were lucky that the evacuation aircraft had been delayed in Frankfurt for 24 hours for repairs.
Clearly shocked by their ordeal, the Sydney couple, who work at the British International School in Cairo, said they still did not know how they had escaped with their lives.
"A friend of ours had a baby on Wednesday and we had been to the hospital to visit. Everything was fine then; it was relatively calm. When we saw the appeal for blood on Facebook we rang to check that it was OK and things seemed OK to return," Mr Clowry said.
"We didn't take risks but when we got close to the hospital, we saw a traffic block … everyone was in plain clothes but everyone had a weapon … iron bars, rocks, fence posts dug out of the ground with cement still attached.
''We had to stop and they just came at us screaming we were anti-government and 'we are going to kill you'. They tried to get us out of the car."
Mr Clowry said his wife tried to talk to the men and calm them down. However, she had quickly realised they were intent on violence and put the car into reverse gear and accelerated away, smashing through iron barriers and fences to escape the mob.
"We realised that if we didn't get out of there we would get killed. Her driving was unbelievable; she just floored it, put her foot down.
''They didn't stop, though. They smashed the windscreen, the side windows, then the back. I don't know, still, how we got out of there alive."
The couple said they had had no intention of leaving Cairo before the attack. "Everything is there: our lives, our home,'' Mr Clowry said. ''It is so terribly sad. Things were under control; it was a peaceful demonstration against the regime until the pro-Mubarak people came out. It is so obvious that they have tried to intimidate people, to frighten the anti-regime people out of [the] demonstration. Sadly, it is working. We only wanted to help and now we have left. So many others will have done the same." His shaken wife added: "I read that the pro-government people were thugs.''
In Sydney yesterday about 200 protesters staged a rally demanding Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stand down. Hundreds also took to the streets of New York and Chicago, calling for his departure.
No comments:
Post a Comment