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Eugene

(61,843 posts)
Thu Apr 4, 2019, 11:20 AM Apr 2019

Egypt killed tourists with US weapons. An American survivor wants justice

Source: The Guardian

Egypt killed tourists with US weapons. An American survivor wants justice

April Corley was with a tour group when military fired upon them with rockets. Now she’s asking the US to halt the sale of more weaponry to Egypt

Ruth Michaelson in Cairo
Tue 2 Apr 2019 07.00 BST Last modified on Tue 2 Apr 2019 14.10 BST

A US woman who survived an attack by the Egyptian military on a group of tourists is now fighting to prevent the sale of the US-made weaponry that left her permanently scarred.

April Corley from San Diego and her Mexican boyfriend Rafael Bejarano were traveling with a tour group in Egypt’s White Desert in September 2015 when they were attacked by Egyptian military, who later claimed they mistook the group for jihadist militants.

“I was doing cartwheels in the sand, Rafael was taking pictures of me. Then all of a sudden it felt like I was thrown to the ground, and Rafael wasn’t near me any more. There was just … black, black all over the sand,” she said.

Corley described how the tourists scrambled for shelter as an Apache attack helicopter circled overhead, firing at them with rockets and 30mm machine guns for several hours – even while their guides desperately waved a white flag.

-snip-

Corley has called on the US to deny Egypt the $1bn sale of a further 10 Apache AH-64E helicopters, arguing that the attack is a stark example of misuse of weapons made by the US manufacturer Boeing. “It’s not what their designs were intended for,” she said.

-snip-


Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/01/egypt-military-tourist-attack-white-desert
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