'Welcome to Beit Allam'
It's been nearly a year since 22 members of the same Upper Egyptian family were killed in cold blood by a rival clan. Reem Nafie finds the village of Beit Allam still mired in vengeance and hate
The sign at the village entrance was put up quite recently: "Welcome to Beit Allam". The sign, combined with the sight of village children playing under the scorching summer sun, while older men lounge in coffee shops sipping tea and smoking shisha, gives the village a very normal feel, as if last year's bloody massacre was long forgotten and gone. But a vendetta still hangs over Beit Allam, this village 400 kilometres south of Cairo where, on 10 August 2002, a gruesome multiple murder took place.
Two months ago, in May, six men from the Abdel-Halim family were sentenced to death by a Sohag criminal court for staging that vengeful ambush, which killed 22 people from the El-Hanashat family, a rival clan from the same village.
The 10 August massacre was the deadliest feud to have taken place in Southern Egypt since 1995. The six men sentenced by the court had hidden in the fields on the outskirts of Beit Allam, spraying machine-gun fire on two vehicles in a murderous rage that killed 22 El-Hanashats -- including a nine-year-old boy -- in cold blood.
Ironically, the convoy carrying the El-Hanashats that day was on its way to a Sohag court to attend a hearing involving two of their family members who were accused of murdering an Abdel-Halim just five months earlier.
The dispute between the two families goes back to 1990, when an El-Hanashat was killed by an Abdel-Halim. The El-Hanashats waited until 2002 -- when they killed the Abdel-Halim -- to get their revenge. The Abdel-Halims, however, were far less patient. It took them only five months to lay their deadly trap.
While the six convicted Abdel-Halims are appealing their death sentences, another 13 members of the same family were also facing charges stemming from the incident. Seven of them who were tried by the same court on conspiracy charges were given life sentences, as were three of the six tried by a state security court on weapons charges. The remaining three state security court defendants were cleared of the charges against them, but for security reasons have not yet been released. All the criminal court convictions are currently being appealed; as for the state security court verdicts, they cannot be appealed.
Official statements claiming that the court verdicts will help restore calm to Beit Allam do not seem to be supported by facts on the ground. El- Hanashat family leaders told Al-Ahram Weekly that the "verdict is unfair and does not match the brutality of the incident". For the El-Hanashats, justice can only be served via a mathematical eye-for-an- eye equation. In their view, it is unacceptable that only six Abdel-Halims are getting the death penalty for killing 22 El-Hanashats. "What about the remaining 16 El-Hanashat lives? Don't they count for anything?" asked one family member.
That sentiment explains the heavy security presence surrounding the Abdel-Halim family house, protection against a potential El-Hanashat retaliation meant to avenge the honour of their 22 fallen men.
"We are here," one of the security officers told the Weekly, "because we can't risk another round of violence, now that the situation has just started to calm down."
Although the security source also claimed, "the El-Hanashats are calm and satisfied with the verdict," according to one El-Hanashat family leader, the only solution that would comfort the El- Hanashats would be the court sentencing 22 members of the Abdel-Halim family to death. Fully aware of the impossibility of that happening (especially considering the fact that only 19 Abdel- Halim family members were on trial in the first place), the El-Hanashat source said, "otherwise the feud won't end. The Abdel-Halims killed 22 and we want 22 lives in return, not just six, or I swear that next time we will kill 90, and no one can stop us, not even the police."
Despite this kind of anger, officials like Hishmat Abul-Kheir, the Shura Council member from Sohag assigned by the government to arrange reconciliation meetings between the two families, still thinks the two families may be able to call a truce. According to Abul-Kheir, "16 of the Abdel- Halims can be considered dead, since the lives of the 10 sentenced to life imprisonment will probably end in prison."
This sort of logic, however, did not convince the El-Hanashats spoken to by the Weekly. "If you're not hung or killed," they said, "then you are considered alive." The family rejected offers regarding a reconciliation meeting, saying they refused to talk about "peace" between the families until the appeals process is over. "We can't talk about peace until there is a definite ruling, and then we will think about it," said one of the El- Hanashats, despite the fact that they are all well aware that expecting the courts to hand down the death penalty instead of the 10 life sentences it had already handed down was far-fetched. "No court will ever do that, but we are waiting anyway, giving the authorities the benefit of the doubt," one of the El-Hanashats said. The appeals are not expected to be ruled on for another 4-6 months.
The El-Hanashat clan feels they are being reasonable in other ways as well. Although immediately following the massacre, the 13 El-Hanashat men married to Abdel-Halim women threatened to divorce their wives, they didn't end up doing so. "We were enraged at first," explained one of the El-Hanashats, "and said we would divorce them. But when you think of it, it's not their fault. So we stayed with them and the children, and didn't destroy our families." In fact, the women are even allowed to occasionally visit their Abdel-Halim relatives, albeit only for a few hours during the day.
Nevertheless, several of these same men made it clear that they would readily kill their Abdel- Halim wife's brother or father if they were given the chance.
Despite all the anger and hatred, many of the El- Hanashats also say they are trying their best to lead a normal life. "We go to work, the children go to school," one of them said, "even though the incident will never be forgotten. It will live with us forever."
The 22 men who were killed last August were considered some of the clan's finest -- many were well-educated and major breadwinners. According to El-Hanashat elders, the clan's women were the most affected by the killings, and they are the ones having the greatest difficulty going on with their lives. "One of the women lost a husband and a son. Until today she doesn't talk to anyone and constantly cries," one said. The El-Hanashats refused to allow the Weekly to talk to any of the women, saying it would "reopen their wounds".
The younger family members, meanwhile, are not being pressured to take a particular course of action vis a vis the vendetta. "No one is going to force me to kill an Abdel-Halim," said a 16-year- old El-Hanashat boy. "But if I do ever see one, I will kill him because of what he did to us."
Luckily, then, although they live side-by-side, the El-Hanashats and Abdel-Halims have not really met since last August. "We avoid streets we might see them on, and the authorities have [the Abdel-Halims] confined to their houses, so they rarely go out," said an El-Hanashat. For security reasons, members of both clans were even banned from attending court hearings.
According to other villagers, nearly the entire Abdel-Halim clan had fled the village prior to last year's attack. Since then, only the family's older men, women and children have returned.
The head of the Abdel-Halim family -- an old man the villagers call "One-legged Abdel-Shafie" -- refused to comment on the current situation. He did, however, send a messenger to tell the Weekly that he "does not have anything to say, and does not like media exposure". The villagers explained that the Abdel-Halims never speak to the press, for fear that they will always seem like "villains to anyone who does not understand the Southern mentality".
According to Abdallah, an older villager with close ties to both families, the people of Beit Allam agree that killing is "a horrid act", but when "we talk about taar (the Arabic word for vendetta), it's different -- it has to do with our honour and who we are." Abdallah said that "everyone in this small village knows that this is not the end, and that no matter what the court says, the Abdel- Halims and El-Hanashats will continue to shed each other's blood."
Basil -- one of the younger El-Hanashat children -- agreed. "The feud will only end if one of the families wipes the other one out completely," he warned. "We will strike back even if it takes us 100 years."
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 10 - 16 July 2003 (Issue No. 646)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/646/eg1.htm