A worker with the military-owned Al-Arish Cement factory was shot dead Tuesday, while three others were injured, as an army officer and a conscript allegedly opened fire on them.
According to the military, the deceased worker was injured at the factory and was rushed to hospital, along with three other colleagues, when militants purportedly fired at them.
A worker in the factory told Daily News Egypt that a fellow worker, called Hesham Ramadan, was severely injured on Tuesday morning.
“His colleagues tried to transfer him to the factory’s clinic, where he didn’t receive any medical assistance,” he said. “Then some of the workers protested in front of the administration’s offices. What followed was an army APC storming into the factory, and firing warning shots, killing one and injuring another three.”
The deceased was shot in the neck, while one of the injured was shot in the leg. he added that “in the hospital, the body was autopsied, without the permission of the family”.
“We thought that the army would intervene to stand by our side, but they fired at the workers.”
He said that workers are refusing to work to protest the murder of their colleague. “There are more than 1,000 workers who are overworked and living in harsh conditions,” he said.
The official narrative adopted by the army, state media, and Al-Arish hospital, is that the four workers were attacked by militants in an ambulance, which was supposed to transfer them to the hospital.
The Al-Arish Cement factory is owned by the armed forces. It is one of the army’s contributions to the Egyptian economy. The factory constructed a new cement production line to be completed by the end of 2015.
It was inaugurated by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawy, former head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in April 2012, during SCAF’s reign.
