The Nag Hammadi drive-by shooting on Christmas Eve left six Copts dead and nine injured. Six of the injured are now in Alexandria for advanced treatment. Watani visited them WATANI International 31 January 2010
Photos by Jan Michel
“Following Midnight Mass in Mar-Youhanna Church on Christmas Eve, I left church with a friend and loitered for some minutes in the street exchanging Christmas greetings with a group of friends—there were some 20 of us. We were gathered in front of the Lucas Company for garments, a few metres from the Nag Hammadi bishopric. Suddenly, we heard shots. We first thought it could be fire works. But I found I had been hit with four bullets. “What’s happening?” I cried. “Someone told me you have been shot in the back. I put my hand on my shoulder and my back, I found loads of blood.”
This is how Joseph Samuel, a 20-year-old Nag Hammadi young man vividly remembers the events of that fateful night. He was not the only one injured in the shootout. Eight other young men were also wounded.
“I was transferred to Nag Hammadi Hospital, where I received minimal first aid. Two and a half hours later, I was moved with the other injured to Sohag Hospital, where I underwent surgery to get two bullets out of my shoulder and my stomach. But the other two bullets—one a bare centimetre away from the heart, and one in the pelvis—were taken out through surgery at Victoria Hospital in Alexandria.”
Feast-turned-disaster
The families of the young men were informed of the shooting by telephone on that Christmas Eve. Most of the parents had been home, waiting for their sons to arrive for Christmas dinner. All the mothers and fathers had the same heart-breaking story to tell Watani; the Christmas feast was ready, the table was set, and the food on the stove kept warm to serve as soon as the children came in. Then the telephone rang to inform of the shocking news: “Your son has been shot.”
“At around 11:00pm a friend called to say that my son had been shot and moved to Nag Hammadi hospital,” Shenouda Fathy Yacoub said. “I rushed to the hospital to find a bloodbath; blood was everywhere and several injured lay on stretchers. I found my son Onsi who was bleeding and was shot in the arm. The hospital conducted some first aid, but the manager told us that Nag Hammadi hospital did not have the means to treat serious injuries and the injured must be moved to Sohag teaching hospital.”
The parents of Kyrillos Wagih were also waiting for him at home. They had called him on his cell phone earlier and he said that Mass was drawing close to its end and he would not be late. Then, around 11:00pm, “Kyrillos’s friend Antonious called me and, in a panic-stricken voice, said that Kyrillos had been shot. We ran out of the house, his mother and I; we didn’t even think of changing our clothes or putting on something warm; and rushed to where we’d been told he was. We found him lying on the ground, bleeding heavily. I called a neighbour who owns a car; he hastened to us and we took Kyrillos to Nag Hammadi hospital. There we found several of his friends who had been attending Mass with him, wounded with various injuries.
In Sohag and Alexandria
“The injured had to be moved to Sohag hospital. At Sohag, some 100km north, the boys found much better medical care. General Mohsen al-Nomani, the governor of Sohag visited the injured, as did Anba Bakhoum, Bishop of Sohag. Other clergy came in to visit and pray for them, and many of Sohag’s young men and women willingly donated blood.”
It became obvious, however, that six of the injured would require more advanced medical care, so they were moved to Victoria Hospital in Alexandria on 19 January. Dr Eissa Girgis, chairman of the board of Victoria Hospital told Watani that Anba Bakhoum and Anba Kyrillos, Bishop of Nag Hammadi, had called him to ask if the hospital could treat the six young men. “I said they were welcome and would receive the best care possible.”
It was thus that Kyrillos Waguih, 16; Abanoub Nash’at Murid, 18; Abra’am Nabil Youssef, 18; Joseph Samuel, 20; Onsy Shenouda Fathy, 24; and Shenouda Mounir Shuhdy, 20; were brought to Victoria Hospital.
Several, Dr Girgis said, suffered from compound fractures; the bullets had penetrated the chest of Joseph Samuel and landed in the left lung close to his heart; Abanoub suffered from a cut in the diaphragm, wounds in the stomach and had a bullet in his pancreas. Two of the young men had serious eye injuries and are under treatment in Cairo, while one was treated for a femur fracture in Sohag.
Prayer and encouragement
Pope Shenouda III visited the young men in hospital. Accompanying him were the bishops Anba Botrous, Anba Yu’annis and Anba Ermiya. He spent some time with them, praying individually for each. His Holiness then met Mohammed Abdel-Gawad, professor of orthopedic surgery, and heard a detailed explanation about the conditions of the injured.
“The visit was instrumental in raising their morale,” Dr Girgis said.
Anba Kyrillos and Anba Moussa, Bishop of Youth, also visited the injured, offering much-needed encouragement and solace.