Another 40 extrajudicial killing

In 29th December, Egyptian security forces killed at least 40 people “suspected of being militants”, in North Sinai and Giza, according to an official statement, a day after an explosion hit a tour bus, leaving four people dead and 10 others wounded.

Egyptian Ministry of Interior did not in particular link the killing of the suspected militants to the attack on the tour bus. However, relatives of two of the victims said their relatives have been forcibly disappeared long before the accident took place after being political detainees imprisoned in the notorious  Akrab prison in Tora.

One of the two victims is Ahmed Yousry, the other is Ibrahim abo Suliman.

In March 2017, Human Rights Watch accused Egypt’s security forces of the extrajudicial executions of at least four people in January that year. “The security forces may have arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared the men and then staged a counterterrorism raid to cover up the killings,”

A Human Rights Watch investigation relying on multiple sources — including documents, interviews with relatives and the official video of the purported raid — suggested that the police had arrested some of the men months before the gunfight was said to have occurred and that the raid had been staged.