Disasters and crises like terrible accidents never fail to make their way to the top trending topics on Google and all social media outlets. This looks reasonable where users become curious to get the latest updates regarding the numbers of victims and mortality rates. However, one thing that usually comes in parallel and lives even longer on top of the trending topics is the unexpected act of kindness some stranger shows in a crisis not out of duty but pure intention to offer help and obey humanity’s call.
As the world commemorates humanity, Today, August 19 through the World Humanitarian Day , it’s time to shed light on Egyptians who chose to obey their humanity call in crisis times where citizens from various backgrounds and social classes became superheroes and received praise from social media users and recognition from officials just because of a video or photo documenting the help they offered or the rescue role they played that was captured by some stranger and went viral on social media.
Misr train station workers
Repeated routine scene amid loud noises of train engines and tractors that workers at Misr train station got used to daily, but it was different on February 27th 2019, when a train tractor entered quickly, at exactly 9:39 am, to cause a terrible collision, and the fire erupted in the bodies of passengers standing close to the fuel tank explosion.
On platform no.6, escapism mastered the scene with survivors trying to get away from the fires and victims rushing with burning bodies. On the other side, 3 from the station workers ran furiously towards the fire with blankets in an attempt to extinguish the fires of the burning bodies of victims. Walid Mardi, Muhammad Abdel Rahman and Muhammad Ramadan who were in their kiosks at the time of the accident raced to offer help and rescue as much victims as possible, hugged the victims with blankets in a scene recorded by the station’s Surveillance Cameras that went viral on social media and made the three workers “champions” as labelled by hundreds of Egyptian social media users.
Misr train station cameras - 27/2/2019
Behind the walls of the kiosk where he worked the 30 year-old Mohamed Ramadan was standing when the fire went out where he had shelter inside these wooden walls. “I didn’t think for once before I started collecting all the blankets and pieces of cloth I use to cover the goods I sell and then went out looking for the burning bodies to cover them and force the fire to die out” said Ramadan.
“I will never forget this elderly man who ran towards me in a burning shirt” Ramadan continued, describing how he helped some man to take off his burning clothes before the fire found its way to the body. “Time was faster than me and my colleagues” Ramadan described the rush they were in due to the large number of victims who were on the platform and the railway. A 10-year-old was struggling to breathe in the midst of fires on the railway when one of Ramadan’s colleagues held him with a blanket.
Months and years passed since the painful incident and despite the praise Ramadan kept receiving from his surroundings and social media users labelling him as a hero, he still remembers every single detail about that day with a broken heart and an eye that does not see its owner as a hero, but a person who answered the call of duty and practiced what his humanity implied. Ramadan overlooked his new label as a “hero” in his tireless attempts to forget what happened on that day “How can I forget when I pass by the site where I lost my close friend every day? I recall the martyrs everyday and pray that heavenly mercy be upon their souls” Ramadan went on.
National Cancer Institute
In the early hours of 5th of August 2019, Egypt was on a date with a painful incident, in which the hands of terrorism reached the vicinity of the National Cancer Institute, and despite the bloody widespread images of victims and patients of the Institute, the humanitarian work and relief from the flames of fire, was the hero of the scene, in a picture reposted thousands of times by social media users that was captured by photographer Jonathan Rashad.
The viral photo showed a young man in his mid-thirties carrying a young girl wearing a "face mask. As Muhammad al-Gohari was on his way home, where he used to walk every day on the pavement next to the institute but, unlike his usual he was walking on the day of the explosion on the other side of the road, which protected him from The fire, which as soon as he saw its first sparks, crossed the road and went to where everyone was trying to escape, to carry the children and the elderly, who needed rescue to get out of the burning institute, to the "nearest safety point" and then go inside again in an attempt to save the largest number of cancer patients who were unable to get out of the scene of the accident.
Al-Gohari spent about two hours there in the site of the explosion thinking of nothing but how to save the largest possible number of people in need of assistance, in what he describes as “amidst the crowd of people and photographers, I could not see a thing but those cancer patients and my humanity forcing me to save them.” Even though he studied and worked in the field of production quality control, Al-Gohari said that what happened did not require a specialist in rescue but a “human being”.
Despite the continuous praise the viral photo brought to Al-Gohari and being labelled as “the heroine rescuer” by his family and friends, Al-Gohari said that in the past two years his main focus wasn’t on the praise which he liked a lot at first but trying to lead his life normally again was “the big thing” which lasted with him till today. “I forget the praise at times but I hear the shouts of cancer children a lot till today”
Benha Train accident
“Tribulations are detectors” a common Arabic idiom, describing how harsh times can reveal the real intentions and instincts of people. In the recent to minds train accident in Toukh in the Qalyubia governorate on 19th of April with a relatively large number of injuries and deaths Egyptians shown how hand in hand they stand in harsh times, drawing attention to a scene of solidarity where captured photos of country ladies bringing Ramadan’s Iftar to victims went viral all over social media.
“From Benha yet not pretending to be from Benha” this is exactly what social media users commented in a sarcastic manner while reposting the viral photos of citizens from Benha offering help at the site of the accident in a reference to the common Egyptian saying that promotes that whenever someone pretends to ignore something is called “from Benha”.
In this accident and many other disastrous ones, the lens of the citing camera marked the way of the act of kindness to the social media trend making out of the photographer’s behind the choice to record a certain moment with another hero. One photo that prevailed the scene on social media was that of a woman from the countryside carrying many plates of food to the site of the accident.
Chrouq Ghoneim, photojournalist in the feature section at Masrawy news site went on that day of the accident to its site with the aim of looking for photos to document iftar moments following the accident and ended up with what she calls “Hania’s photo” in which a middle aged woman stood carrying a tray over her head on which plates of generous amounts of rice and bread were there.
“The scene was pretty usual with a fuss and many people rushing, seeing the tray vaguely made me run on the railways to get to this hero” Ghoneim mentioned. Surprisingly “El set Hania” the hero of the viral photo is not a rich woman “she doesn’t even have a mobile phone”. A habit Shrouk has is to talk to the source before shooting where she learnt that the 45-year-old lady, Hania Talha, was on her way back home from work in a nearby village when she learnt about the accident. “In no time” Hania decided to go home to get the meat she had already cooked for her family’s iftar and cooked rice, potatoes and made salad then rushed towards the accident site pushed by her maternal instinct.
In more than one incident, photos Ghoneim captured with her lens found its way to the top of the social media trend, the thing which she never expected amid a normal day of doing the job she always loved. “Set Hania’s photo going viral as well as any of these types of photos makes me feel grateful to the opportunity my job honored me with to shed light on normal people who are worth recognition but may be overlooked” Chrouq explained.
On the other hand, the wider reach and popularity social media gave to any of Ghoneim’s photos made her feel thankful to the social media’s role in “indirect repay” of the hardships she and her colleagues in journalism suffer in the coverage of accidents and crises. “The praise I receive makes me feel that it’s worth it to go and seek documenting more humanitarian moments of the Egyptian people'', according to Ghoneim.