Travel Reference
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'Take . . . this ,' I said. On the side of one of the buildings was a familiar piece of graffiti:
the stencilled image of a four-fingered hand. I'd seen it often since we left Luxor, and still
didn't know what it meant.
'It's the sign that shows solidarity with the victims of Rabaa,' Turbo explained, solemn
for the first time.
'Rabaa?'
'The Rabaa Massacre. It's almost a year ago to the day. Wherever you see the four fin-
gers, that's shouting out to the victims. It's a pro-Morsi signal. It's Muslim Brotherhood.'
The Rabaa Massacre had occurred on 14 August 2013, in one of Cairo's major squares.
For six weeks, protestors in support of President Morsi, who had been ousted from office
at the start of July, occupied the square - and, when talks had failed to move them on, the
army intervened. At least 638 people were killed that day - though the Muslim Brother-
hood put the figure at more than 2,600. Of all the swirling information and misinformation
there is about the massacre, all sides agree on one thing: this was the most deadly day in
Egypt since the revolution of 2011 that had first brought Morsi to power.
'I've seen other graffiti, too . . . CC. Donkey. Pig. '
'That's anti-Sisi graffiti. Sisi, CC, get it? All of Egypt's the same, Lev - half of them
wanted Morsi, half of them didn't. Half of us want Sisi, half of us don't. It's the same up
and down the Nile - no one side ever wins the day, and that's why we've had two revolu-
tions . . .'
He was right. Later that day, as we tramped on, I saw Egyptian flags flying from the
houses of one village, pictures of the incumbent leader plastered on every wall - while, in
the next, the four-fingered hand was daubed onto the sides of houses. The pattern of sup-
port and dissent seemed to alternate with every mile.
It was late when I came to the outskirts of a village called Al-Kush. For the first time
in what felt like days, my police minders were leaving me alone; some time ago, they had
cruised past, up the road, eager to turn in early for the night. As I came between the first
houses, a collection of tall, roughly made mud-brick structures, a gaggle of men appeared
between two buildings and darted away from the road. Moments later, a burst of automatic
gunfire penetrated the silence from only a few hundred metres away. Instinctively, I scur-
ried for the safety of the nearest wall. Using it for cover, I waited for the gunfire to die
away and looked up, desperate to know what was going on. An old woman looked on from
a nearby garden, seemingly unperturbed by the fracas, her suspicion reserved solely for
this strange man hunkered down behind the garden wall.
In that moment, a car came screeching down the street, heading straight for me. Adren-
aline hit me, I prepared to take flight - but it was only Turbo, hanging half out of the 4×4
as it ground to a halt.
'Did you hear that?' I yelled, as he tumbled onto the road.
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