Bombing in the Egyptian capital

It’s been an interesting week.

I had a post prepared for crashing the Egyptian wedding, but you really never know when spot news will come along.

Monday morning headlines read “Tourists hit by Cairo bomb blast” or some variation of that. The body of the articles probably differed as well. What most sources agree on is that there was a bomb explosion near a café near Khan el-Khalili, the largest and most tourist-packed of Cairo’s markets. The blast went off at 6:30 PM EET (so 11:30 AM EST) leaving 1 dead, and 2 dozen or so injured. A second bomb was found in front of a mosque nearby and it was disarmed (/control detonated) when officials arrived.

I went to the bomb site a few hours after the explosion and it was still pretty chaotic. The entire Khan el-Khalili area was closed and policemen by the dozens blockaded every road that led to the square where the blast took place. After circling the area I was amazed to find myself within sight of the café. The area was swarming with journalists, armed with microphones, cameras and video equipment. Policemen and guards armed with face shields and riot sticks warded the crowds back. Behind the yellow tape, officials investigated the situation. Outside the perimeter, in front of Al-Hussein Mosque, the floor was splattered with blood.

All of this was visible from behind the yellow tape and the line of policemen–no rules broken. What happened next, however, might be considered otherwise.

I noticed a photographer was on an upper floor of the building where the blast took place. We made our way to an alleyway where we found a few sheesha pipe shops and a staircase leading somewhere. We were about to go up when the shop owner stopped us. He spoke rapidly in Arabic and we tried to explain that we wanted to go ‘up’. He seemed to understand, pointed out that the stairs we were looking at led to an upper level cafe–not where we wanted to be–and then pointed us in the right direction.

I’m smacking myself for not having a speedlight as well. Damn you equipment gods!

The next 30 seconds where completely unreal. We followed the man’s directions through a dark alley, passing some poorly lit shops and shadow enshrouded figures. We found a staircase, littered with trash and appearing to have been built for hobbits, but completely functional. We came up onto a landing and there we were; situated directly over the café where the explosion took place.

We met two friendly British fellows and chatted for a while as we watched the events unfold below. A crowd of men surrounded a bright light and I was told it was the second bomb. Several journalists found the same staircase we had and eagerly pointed their cameras at the American students for interviews–Okay, that’s an understatement, it got obnoxious. I had to push them out of the way to get out.

I took a bunch of photos. One gentleman said to me, “the government will kill you” if I posted them somewhere. Why did I post them anyway you ask? For one, I think he was exaggerating; it would probably be some jail time, no big deal. Second, I guess I’m a bit reckless; why go through all that madness to keep the photos for myself?

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