Wednesday, February 19, 2014

St.Catherine Hikers Tragedy : RIP Mohamed Ramadan

Please pray for Mohamed Ramadan , the young filmmaker lost somewhere in St.Catherine Mount in South Sinai. Update : Mohamed Ramadan's dead body was found early Wednesday's morning ,  400 meters away from the dead bodies of the other three hikers by the Bedouins. 

This is the fourth night for Ramadan to spend in the mount since his group was stuck in blizzard storm at the mountains , at Bab El Donia mountain to be specific in the area last Saturday.

According to the survivors “only 4”, Ramadan was lost in the blizzard . Now we do not if he is going to make it or not. Supposedly, the army’s search and rescue helicopter will continue its work to retrieve him first thing in the morning.

These are the last images of Ramadan from St. Catherine Mount posted on his Facebook profile. 
Mohamed Ramadan with a Bedioun Girl at St. Catherine Mount
A Selfie with a Bedouin girl at St. Catherine Mount
"Ramadan official Facebook"

The moon behind the mount  by Mohamed Ramadan
"Mohamed Ramdan official Facebook" 
Unfortunately up till this moment the bodies of Hagar Shalaby, Khaled Sabaei and Ahmed Abel-Azim are still in the mountains.
Late Hagar
From what I understood the Bedouins put them in some cave till the army helicopter returns back in the daylight !!
The 4 survivors are now in St.Catherine hospital. They are Yosra Mounir, Maha El-Aswad, Ihab Qotb and Mahmoud Farouk.

Ihab Qotb posted this message on Facebook page earlier today.


By the ways, there are no communications in St. Catherine Mount proper enough.

Yes, those hikers should have checked weather conditions and so on but I can not ignore the fiasco taking place in order to save them. Since last Saturday and people are asking for help from the authorities to save them.

Only now after in the past 48 hours , only after the social media users began to react following the loss of their friends and make huge noise, the authorities began to act.

I do not need to say some of the hikers’ friends say online now that the government officials in South Sinai did not care at first to rescue the hikers because they are Egyptians and not foreigners !!
 It seems that there is a alot of delay to rescue those boys and girls.

It is enough to read the first statement of the armed forces spokesperson about the incident issued last Monday , Colonel Ali stated the hikers were foreigners. I wish they were foreigners may be the authorities would act faster.

Of course, the army did not save the day for real but rather the Bedouins from the locals as well the hikers’ friends who made noise back in Cairo and annoyed everybody.

Needless to say, the authorities and the army itself are not trained for rescue operation in mountains , in winter time too speaking realistically still I wonder again and again what if they were foreigners.

By the way, some TV hosts now are speaking about those hikers and why they would risk their lives.
Hiking is attracting many young Egyptians now.It is not the young generations’ fault that the older generations do not know hiking and hate hiking with my all due respect.
It is not the young generation's fault that they have the passion to re-discover their own country and go further than the usual resorts and outings.

What happened in St. Catherine was a disaster by all measures yet bad things happen and yes there were mistakes but attacking hikers and hiking trips now will not solve anything especially when tourism is struggling.

I have got mixed emotions because three of the hikers are friends of friends including Ramadan.

We are a generation haunted by death as it seems but we do not fear it too.

In the end, I hope you pray for the safety of Ramadan and mercy for the lost hikers.

9 comments:

  1. I have met Mohamed through film festivals in Dubai. Such a lovely guy. I hope he has found somewhere safe and warm to weather the storm - and that we have a happy ending to this story. I am sending positive thoughts from Canada! Xoxo

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  2. "We are a generation hunted by death as it seems but we do not fear it too. "

    Yeah, wear and explosive belt and go kill yourself among with others! A generation that not only is hunted by death and not fear it, you are the death hunters or the death eaters generation.


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  3. To the person who wrote the comment above... I hope you can somehow understand what I am about to say because I am doubtful of your reading and cognitive abilities: your stupidity is overwhelming.

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  4. The army is not trained for rescue operations because the only thing the army knows how to do is kill civilian protesters. They need to diversify their training regiment, clearly

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    1. The army did all what they could to rescue those precious poor souls . It is not fair to say they did not.
      The army protected us ,even in the days of Gamal Abdel nasser protected another Arabic countries from the foreign occupation,
      Finally after the revolution our Egyptian army protected the land of Egypt from being offered to foreign countries. remember Halayeb and shalateen and Sina,.
      Please son . Show some respect .

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  5. i am heart broken for those youths in this horrible tragedy situation who lost their lives in their best years.
    First of all I believe that all our fates are in the hand of God.and deep in my heart i feel so proud that those youths in masr very enthusiastic about sport as hiking and mountain climbing in the unhappy situation our country going through.
    yet I couldn't bite my tongue about some flaws in the preparations our hiking youths did not pay attention to
    1- I noticed from watching their last photo together that they were not wearing enough warm clothes .
    2- about communications mountaineers usually use more sophisticated gears specially if they knew in advance that there is no ordinary mobile service on the st Catherine mountain.
    3-If they were not sure about the suitability of the weather forecast to their abilities and to their clothing , they could have postponed it to some other time.
    Mountaineering is a dangerous sport -for example not like running or walking- and should not be taken lightly, (It's your life and it is very precious !!!!!)
    4- please look after yourselves and hope God rest their souls in peace and bring comfort to their families .Conclusion Rabena yerhamhom wento ya hikers khallo balko mn nafsoko shwaya aktar.

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  6. May all 4 of these lovely young people, Rest In Peace from a frighteningly numb world. :(

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  7. I hope the moderator takes off Anoynmous hateful message above. It's terrible, even to think such a thing. Just awful!

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  8. I'm always up for bashing the military regime, since I think it destroyed a budding democracy in Egypt and leaves nothing but a crude military dictatorship beset by violence terrorism. But this is one case where I wouldn't really blame it, hikers who go out in an unexpected snowstorm can die here in the US and we have special, dedicated and trained pilots and helicopters standing by waiting for this sort of thing in popular hiking areas. Egypt is a lot poorer and doesn't have regular snowstorms so I very much doubt they have dedicated SAR teams or pilots trained in flying through the snow. And it's hard to find a couple of people on the ground when flying around in a chopper, almost impossible if they don't head to high ground and set a fire or flare off, which it doesn't sound like they did. If they were in a cave it would be pretty much impossible to see them from the air. Tbh, this tragedy could have happened anywhere. So while I'm all for bashng Sisi and the Egyptian military, which I do not respect and consider the greatest barriar to Egypt's political and economic development, in all fairness I don't hold this one against them

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