By Mai Shams El-Din
CAIRO: Around 365 were killed and 5,500 were injured in the nationwide protests that ousted president Hosni Mubarak, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Health on Wednesday.
These numbers represented the dead and the injured that were treated inside the ministry’s hospitals, university hospitals, and armed forces hospitals, a ministry official source told Daily News Egypt.
Some families weren’t able to obtain burial permits for those killed in protests unless they admitted that the cause of death was natural. These numbers weren’t included in the ministry’s report but the cases are still under investigation, according to the source, who preferred to remain anonymous.
He added that “2,349 of the injured received medical treatment inside the ministry’s hospitals, 600 in the university hospitals, the rest were treated inside the armed forces hospitals.”
Of these, 123 are still hospitalized.
The numbers of the victims of the wave of thuggery and looting that took place starting Jan. 28 were more than those killed in Tahrir protests, said the source.
After police pulled out of the streets on the evening of Jan. 28, citizens organized neighborhood watch groups to protect private and public property.
The ministry said it was still conducting qualitative and quantitative categorization of the dead and the injured, especially cause of death and the ages of the dead.
The spokesperson confirmed that the numbers in the report didn’t include policemen and prisoners injured and killed during attempts to escape from prisons.
“The Ministry of Interior claims that the numbers of policemen and prisoners are more than the numbers of civilian victims,” the spokesperson said. “We do not have any official records from Ministry of Interior yet; they say that the matter is under investigation.”
