Egypt vigilantes protect children's cancer hospital from looters

Reporting from Cairo — He's grizzled and stooped, and speaks humbly of his job at the nation's premier pediatric cancer facility. He's just a mechanic, he says. He fixes the hospital's fleet of vehicles.

But as an epidemic of looting swept the Egyptian capital over the weekend, Farag Abdul Fatah Ahmed had a far more important role to play: Helping save the hospital he loves from plunderers.

On Saturday, with Egyptian police absent from the streets as the capital was racked by political unrest, a gang of 15 or 20 men armed with crude weapons tried to force their way into the Children's Cancer Hospital in the Cairo neighborhood of Dokki. It's a fancy-looking building, with ornate curved glass facades and a wide, bright lobby. The thieves apparently figured there would be things inside worth stealing.

Hospital guards managed to drive the men back, but were panicked at the prospect that the looters would return to the lightly defended facility.

But in Dokki, as in many Cairene neighborhoods, men and boys living nearby had already begun to organize themselves into a vigilante defense force. Alerted by Ahmed, they made protecting the hospital their top priority.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-egypt-hospital-20110201,0,3820775.story

Neighborhood Defenders!

Yes, they can be called many good things better than Vigilantes.

I just cut & pasted the headline. Yeah, I agree a better term could've been used.

It's like they can't acknowledge these guys properly though. Amazing.

Five thousand years must count for something. I'm so proud of them. Nothing like grassroot movements.

for 2011 and 2012