Gone forever

Ten Egyptians were amongst the dead. Reem Nafie recounts the harrowing tale of one of the victims' families

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Maged Mustafa Amin

Maged Mustafa Amin's parents sat and stared at their son's picture, which hung on the wall of their humble home in the working class district of Mit Oqba near Mohandessin. When 35-year-old Amin -- a driver working for a Taba-based car rental company -- left the family home last Thursday, on an assignment to deliver a package to the Hilton Taba lobby, he promised his mother he would be back for Iftar on the first day of Ramadan.

"I was worried about him from the minute he left Cairo," Amin's mother told Al-Ahram Weekly. "I hated the six-hour drive he had to make." At 8pm that night, using his mobile phone, Amin called his mother and told her that he had arrived safely. "Can you please stop worrying now?" he asked her.

Amin died shortly after that call. He was one of the ten Egyptian victims of the Taba Hilton attack.

While the Weekly was interviewing Amin's parents, dozens of friends, neighbours and relatives streamed in and out to offer their condolences. With nearly every visitor asking, "what happened?" his younger brother, Mohamed, ended up telling the same story over and over again.

"A friend called me and told me what had happened in Taba," Mohamed said with tears trickling down his cheek. "The first thing I did was call Amin; when his mobile was shut I knew he was dead."

Mohamed paused. "He was everything to me, everything," he said, as everyone in the house cried.

Mohamed continued to recount the events of that awful night. He then called one of Amin's friends, who confirmed his suspicions. "He told me that after Amin got to Taba, he hung out with him for nearly two hours before heading over to the Hilton to deliver the package." Mohamed paused again. "And then the hotel just collapsed."

Amin was not only a loyal, loving son; he also supported a family consisting of two sisters and a brother. He had decided not to pursue a university degree; working instead to help his retired father make ends meet. Four years ago, Amin accepted a job offer in Taba as a driver, after being offered a higher salary than the one he had been making at the electricity company where he used to work.

"Amin helped us [with the financial burdens involved in] his older sister getting married, and he insisted on his younger brother going to university and getting a degree," said his father, who was still visibly dazed by the loss. Incredulous that his son was gone forever, the father said, "we were planning to help him find a suitable wife. He had already bought all the electrical appliances for his future home." Amin's mother pointed at boxes stacked nearby.

Nearly all of the Egyptians who died were young men who had left their hometowns to seek slightly greener pastures in Sinai. Many were either on the verge of getting married, or were newlyweds; all of them used their paychecks to support their families.

Thirty-two-year-old Ahmed Abdel-Aziz, for instance, was a hotel security employee. The only part that remained of his body was a hand with his wedding ring on it. Mustafa Soliman of Ismailia was only days away from announcing his engagement; he had become his family's main breadwinner after his father was paralysed by an accident. A young bride in Mansoura, meanwhile, mourned the death of her husband Ahmed Mansour, 23, also a hotel security employee.

The other Egyptian victims were Amr El-Shahhat, Ahmed Saleh, Manar Mohamed, Ahmed Abdel-Latif, Shahir Shawqi, and Mohamed Ahmed Zahran.

As unidentified bodies awaited the results of DNA tests, the death toll was certain to rise. Hilton International, meanwhile, established a hotline to help Egyptians and foreigners inquire about missing relatives. The hotel chain also urged those who survived and fled the scene to check in so that they could be crossed off the "missing list".