Egypt’s Femicide Continues: Her name was Kholoud Darwish and she was 20 years old

Her name was Kholoud Darwish, and she was only 20 years old. That young lady was killed earlier Monday in Port Said by her ex-fiancé after breaking up with him.

late Kholoud Darwish 

Kholoud Darwish is the latest known victim of the femicide wave in Egypt.

According to news reports, Kholould Darwish was a 20-years-old girl from Port Said who lost both parents and is living with her younger brothers at the house of her aunt.

Four months ago, she started to work in a textile factory at the Free Zone in Port Said where she met a young man “Mohamed Samir” who proposed to her, and she got engaged to him.

Samir turned out to be from another governorate, from Dahaqliya in Nile Delta and he was already married and had a child.

Some news sources say that he claimed that he was divorced while others say that she knew later.

Either way, Kholoud decided to end their engagement a couple of days ago. Since then, he threatened to kill her if she did not return to him.

Two days ago, Darwish resigned from the factory to avoid Samir. It is said that her colleagues witnessed his threat to kill her on Sunday at the factory.

On Monday, Samir went to the house of Kholoud’s aunt where his former ex lived as he knew she would be alone.

He stormed the house and attacked the young girl who called one of her friends asking for help telling her that Samir was going to kill her.

Samir had beaten Kholoud and it seems she passed out due to the constant beating, especially on her head. He then strangled her with her veil leaving her a dead body before fleeing the scene. He was arrested by the neighbours till the arrival of the police.

Late Kholoud with her murder during their 
engagement in some sad photo 

From the description given to the media, this is huge violence reflecting tremendous anger and contempt.

Kholoud left two younger brothers and I am reading unconfirmed reports that her younger brother,the-9-years-old witnessed the crime.

I hope it is just a rumour and he was in school or in the street.

Mohamed Samir was arrested. Again, he turned out to be from a Nile Delta governorate.

Kholoud means immortality and it seems that the poor girl did not get a share from her name. “Yes, in Egypt we believe when you name a child, he or she gets their share of life from their names and thus we should choose the names carefully.”

Kholoud joins her sisters Naira, Salma and Amany in five months.

Those are the girls whose names reached the mainstream media, but I am sure there are more of them in those past weeks.

We do not take into consideration the crimes done under the context of “honour crimes”.

We do not take into consideration the girls and women who have been disfigured by scorned lovers who can’t take a No for an answer.

In less than a week, an 18-years-old girl in Qalyubia was disfigured by a young man whom she rejected.

I ended the last post about the late Amany El-Gazaar that we are waiting for the next victim and again I repeat it again, unfortunately, Kholoud won’t be the last.

It is just scary because we do not know who will be next and it could be anyone of us who can reject the advances of any man when we think it.

I know that femicide is a world problem and it won’t end but in those hard times, especially economic times I fear that the rates of crimes and violence against women increase because women are vulnerable in our society.

Maybe parents and families need to rethink the way how they bring up their boys. Since childhood, it seems that we got generations of boys and men who are raised upon the principle “do not take no for answer” and “no woman will ever reject you”.

It is not a "woke" thing , we are just asking men to respect and consider women as humans and to stop killing them for the love of God !! It is like the minimum level of demands !! 

 Something must be done.