The Egyptian military shot dead a young student from al-Arish in north Sinai as she traveled on a road between Cairo and Alexandria, as reported by al-Arabi al-Jadeed.
The victim’s father Hamdi Azzazi said that his daughter, aged 22, was studying at the School of Economics and Political Science and was killed by a hail of bullets from security forces.
“The car came under fire after the driver lost his way and entered a forbidden area, with troops firing on the car, “according to Al-Arabi al-Jadeed. Security sources said the incident was an “accident” and had nothing to do with security as quoted by the Egyptian media
In September 2015, an Egyptian army aircraft fired on a group of visitors parked for a barbecue near a tourist site, thinking they were militants. Eight Mexican citizens and four Egyptians were killed. Six Mexicans were wounded.
Egypt’s Ministry of Interior said that military and police forces had been conducting security operations in El-Wahat (Western Oasis) in the Western Desert. After opening fire, security forces discovered that the four vehicles were civilian.
According to the interior ministry, the vehicles had been in an area prohibited to civilians due to the dangerous security situation.
The Egyptian government did not publicly apologize for the attack but put the blame on the travel company that organized the trip.
Since the military coup in 2013, the Egyptian military have been fighting a war against insurgents in Sinai Peninsula including Sinai Province a group affiliated to the Islamic State (IS).
Clashes with Islamic State group-linked militants frequently take place.
The government says hundreds of police and soldiers have died in the attacks, which have also hit Cairo and the Nile Delta.
The IS-linked militant group also said it was responsible for the bombing of a Russian plane over Sinai in October 2015 which killed all 224 people on board, most of them holidaymakers. Meanwhile, security forces are also involved in crushing pro-democracy activists, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood and liberals.
Egypt has fallen under military rule after the 2013 coup led by the former Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi against Egypt’s first democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi.
Since then, the Egyptian authorities have launched massive crackdown on political opposition, human right activists, and journalists.
According to international organizations’ estimates, Egyptian authorities are detaining about 40,000 of its opponents, suffering poor conditions and hundreds have died in detention as a result of torture and medical negligence.
Even foreigners were targeted by the Egyptian security forces as maintaining “security” became the banner raised by the military regime to justify their unhumanitarian practices.
One of those victims was the Italian PhD student Giulio Regeni who has disappeared on the fifth anniversary of January Revolution and his body was found on the side of the Cairo-Alexandria highway on February 3 by passengers on a bus that had broken down, according to a police source.
The body showed signs of torture, including cigarette burns and beatings, said Egyptian forensics officials. Regeni’s mother addressed the Italian parliament saying that her son’s injuries were so bad and she identified him only by the tip of his nose.
International newspapers, Egyptian human rights groups and activists say that Regeni’s body carry the signs of the Egyptian security forces, allegations those services and the government have strongly denied.
