September 14, 2015

Egyptian forces accidentally kill tourists

editor:	Gurmeet Singh

Egypt has fought an Islamist insurgency since 2013. Many parts of the nation have been marked off as inaccessible by authorities; certain roads and routes in particular commonly used by insurgents.

The insurgents have adopted the moniker, "the Sinai Province" of the Islamic State, killing hundreds of civilians and soldiers, and detonating bombs in major cities, as well as in more rural areas.

Yesterday, a combined group of security and police forces opened fire on cars travelling through one of the "special-access only" zones. 12 passengers were killed and 10 injured, though not a single one was a terrorist, insurgent or militant. They were tourists from Mexico, with Egyptian tour guides.

The forces believed they were firing on insurgents - the two cars carrying the victims. An inquest has been launched to determine how the vehicles came into the area and why the forces immediately fired.

The insurgents trying to maximise civilian death and injury can sometimes inure us to the nature of the battles around us; they kill innocents. It sometimes takes an event as unfortunate and heavy-handed as this to shock us back into reality; the crude calculus of "friend/ enemy" played its part - the victims were in the wrong place, and therefore must have been terrorists. Their deaths show us just how indelicate the fight between security forces and terrorists is; rather than the hyper-advanced warfare coupled with reliable intelligence we're used to as an image, bullets are fired, drones launched and bombs dropped - and innocents always die.

Image: Reuters (file photo)