Walaa Abdulsattar, 23-years old, had just finished her studies in social work when she became a victim of post-revolutionary violence. She belonged to a generation of young activists that filled squares and triggered the revolution last year, despite being far away from the capital.

Walaa Abdulsattar, 23-years old, had just finished her studies in social work when she became a victim of post-revolutionary violence. She belonged to a generation of young activists that filled squares and triggered the revolution last year, despite being far away from the capital.

“She wished for martyrdom in Tahrir Square and asked me to go there,” recalls her mother, 50 year-old Dawlat Osman Mohammed. “But because of distances and our rural nature, I refused.” Although the young woman was prepared to die for the revolution, it was the subsequent breach in security that cost Abdulsattar her life.

Gang Violence

Abdulsattar hailed from Sana’a, 40 kilometers far from the city of Kharga, the capital of the New Valley (500 km southwest of Cairo). The village consists of a number of houses scattered amidst the desert, with a population of no more than a few hundred.

Most people work in small green islands of reclaimed desert land, livestock breeding or date trading. The village is located near two railway lines: Abu Tartour-Qena, which carries phosphate from the oases to the Red Sea ports for export, and passenger line Paris Oasis, a major artery for the movement of the village residents.

Far away from the eyes of security services, armed gangs are active in trading in rails and flanges to supply the demand of local iron plants. This illicit trade is so profitable, it has flourished in the governorates of Qena, Sohag and Assiut near the New Valley Governorate. Gangs sell iron to specialized scrap dealers who in turn hand it over to the iron and steel plants.

Most gangs, according to a security source, were not that armed until the Libyan revolution when smuggling weapons and SUVs to Egypt became commonplace, and were then sold cheaply by Bedouins living in those areas and moving between Egypt and Libya.

Caught in the Crossfire

Villagers reported gang theft of rails connecting them to Paris Oasis. And in  what is believed to have been a retaliatory raid on the village, Abdulsattar’s fate crossed with the gang’s.

“We informed the police, so the Governor, Major General Tariq Mahdi, escorted by a police force, attacked the gang but without enough preparations,” said Mahmoud Abdulrahman, the town’s mayor.  “He discovered that the gang had SUVs and heavy machineguns. They surrounded the police forces until those withdrew and the gang returned to the village and opened heavy fire, setting fire to cars and houses.”

Abdulsattar Abdulrahman, recalls how his daughter died on that day. “The railway gang blockaded us for six hours and fired a barrage of bullets on houses from two SUVs.”

“Walaa was shot dead in her heart and remained with us inside the house for 24 hours because we were not able to get out in the presence of a street war led by the gang against the village. We called the police but to no avail. They only arrived at ten, about two hours after the gang had left toward the mountain.”

Security forces later managed to arrest all the members of the gang in Sodfa in Assiut Governorate. The gang leader, Jamal Abulhassan, 41-years old, was killed in the exchange of fire with security.

Free at Last

In remembering the fallen Abdulsattar, Um Saddam, a mother of the deceased woman’s friend said: “A week before she was martyred, Walaa told me she wished she had died for her country in the Tahrir Square during the revolution to enter paradise, as if she had felt she would meet the martyrs soon.”