Yesterday the world lost a beautiful soul, 19-year-old Yara Tarek Negm. She was a first year engineering student at the German University in Cairo.
According to Karim Naguib, the vice president of the GUC Student Union, she was running to catch her bus at 4 pm and accidentally stumbled behind a bus while another bus came up from behind, crushing her between the two.
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Protests continued on Wednesday morning, with GUC campus security preventing students from entering. In response, students blocked the gates and prevented university staff from entering. This forced campus security to eventually allow students to enter.
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GUC declared three days of mourning and cancelled all classes. All buses leading to the campus have also been cancelled during these three days.
Karim Naguib also stated in a television interview, that the university ambulance came after 15 minutes and by then Yara had already lost a huge amount of blood. Some students at GUC have claimed the university refused o send the ambulance until Yara was confirmed as a GUC student.
Yara was transferred to the Air Force hospital in the Fifth Settlement and her death was confirmed at 7 o’clock by the Student Union through their Facebook page.
According to Samar Hamouda, a second year architecture student, today engineering students with the GUC Student Union stood in the “platform” of the campus and got as many people to strike with them. They wanted two main things: the questioning and accountability of the transport department, and a radical change in the security and parking system of the campus.
They believe that it isn’t just the bus driver’s fault, rather that the whole transport department should be held accountable. The bus driver was arrested on Tuesday and is being prosecuted and questioned about the incident.
After the strike at the platform funeral prayers were held in Al Wafaa w Al Amal Mosque in Nasr City after noon prayers. The University provided buses for students in order to attend and support Yara’s family.
However, this didn’t end the anger that the students were feeling. After the funeral prayers students gathered in the bus area and stopped the 2:15PM buses to leave the campus. The students declared they are not going to leave until their voices are heard and their demands are met.
Up until Wednesday morning, the students were still protesting in the campus ordering for their 10 demands to be met. In response the university declared three days of mourning and canceled classes.
According to the GUC student union Facebook page, there will be no buses to the university tomorrow and the day after. However, the students are still going to sit-in and they are going to carpool together. They are planning to meet at 10 AM on Wednesday in front of the main gate to continue the sit-in.
However, in response to the demonstrations, campus security prevented any further students from entering the university. In response, protesting students blocked the gates, preventing professors and university staff from entering. Eye-witnesses say that this move by the student resulted in the university’s security allowing students to enter.
Comments (6)
Traffic in Egypt has always been bad and ambulances are not given free passage by drivers. I always joke that if I see an ambulance with its siren on in traffic the person being transported will probably die before getting to the hospital. No laughing matter for sure but accurate. Cars refuse to change lanes to give ambulances time to pass. There needs to be laws and through lanes provided for ambulances, buses and carpoolers like in the States. There also needs to be police escorts for ambulances until people get the idea that giving these vehicles right-of-way is the law and the police need to do more to provide support.
The thing is though that GUC has its own ambulances. So traffic cannot be accused here. It is certainly more due to the total neglect of all issues other than money printing. How else comes that GUC installs fancy fountains but often lack water in the bathrooms, or why is the bus parking lot so badly equipped; without pedestrian lanes and bus shades, without separate waiting areas and no space in general?
GUC management is not managing, not responding to well-founded arguments or criticism, it more or less lacks anything which would make the institution worthy of the title “German”. And given its lack of professors’ and student union’s involvement in leadership, it can hardly be called “University” either.
Thank god that the population is still increasing like mad and university licenses are hard to obtain, otherwise competition would have long wiped out GUC. This might have saved poor Yara as well though.
First I would like to say how sorry I am for this tragic accident. People are obviously feeling terrible about this but I do not think you can lash out and accuse the busses. She ran out in front of two buses and fell. Protesting about everything I have seen is not working very well. With all this young generation with bright minds a great new ideas how about forming committees and finding ways how to make it a safer environment and find good ideas to improve this country as a whole. Sometimes trying to blame the system is just a waste of time and far more can be done if one works towards making everything work better. The traffic in Cairo is horrendous and the drivers are out of control since after the revolution. Lets find ways to improve this. My sincerest condolences for the loss of this young life in a tragic accident.
I think the reason why it’s not just an accident is because the university took such a long time to send an ambulance, and they wanted to confirm it was a student as if other lives didn’t matter.