Spent some days in Cairo visiting the Libyan Embassy trying to elicit our Visa. After much posturing, ‘threatening’, trying to see the Consul etc it became clear that it was pretty hopeless expecting a Visa. We phone Saama regularly only to be told the same thing, nothing!
After Cairo we spent time in Naama Bay and at Ras Mohammed National Park snorkelling. We tried to contact lots of Libyan travel agents to resolve travel there but they don’t respond.
We moved onto Dahab, a chilled-out ‘hippy’ resort on the Sinai Peninsula. Here we decided to eat in a very good fish restaurant in Dahab that we had tried before. We had ordered food and were just talking when we heard a loud bang not more than 2-300 metres away, at first it seemed like fireworks but it quickly became clear it was a bomb from the noise and debris thrown high into the air. It was quickly followed by two more bangs. The diners in the restaurant started to panic and the women in the large party of Russians next to us started screaming and they then got up and ran down the stairs out of the restaurant. We soon realised that we and some Israelis were the only people left in the Restaurant. In order to calm the situation I expressed the view that as there had been three explosions in quick succession that it was all over. The Israelis however were refusing to leave the Restaurant, the staff wanted to close and the shutters on all the local shops were hastily being closed mostly in panic. The Israelis then said that in their experience often there were later explosions designed to cause further injury.
Many emergency vehicles were having difficulty getting into the pedestrianised area where the bombs had gone off and many vehicles were also driving madly away from the scene. We decided that it was best to leave the Restaurant (the lights had been switched off by this stage) and made our way out of the building. We were advised by locals to head away from the scene which made perfect sense. I have never seen such mass shock on peoples faces, they were like walking zombies not believing that such a thing could have happened. Others were panicking and I found myself telling them, to no avail, that they should try to keep calm.
We headed back to the area of our hotel away from the scene and went to the Hotel Restaurant. It was eerily quiet and none of the staff or customers said a single word, the shock was felt so keenly by everyone.
When travelling I have been in many places where there has been recent terrorist activity, including bombings but it has never been so close, so immediate or so shocking.
We don’t yet know the full details but understand that the news are broadcasting 22 deaths and we know from our friends Mark & Blanca that there is frantic activity closing the Israeli border. We also know that today is Sinai Liberation Day celebrating the Israeli handover of Sinai although Al Qaeda is on everyone’s lips.
The devices were placed right in the centre of Dahab, one in a shop next to the supermarket behind the Police Station (we had been in the supermarket only 2 hours before the explosion). The shop is now a charred empty shell, the whole of the front blown out. The other devices were either side of the pedestrian bridge which goes across to the busiest restaurant area of Dahab. Many people would have been eating here and there was much flying glass, a hopelessly mangled Bicycle here together with lots of blood on the ground. Troops had been called in and had cordoned off the area.
We simply cannot understand what could motivate anyone to do something so heinous. Shock remains the following morning, I even saw a grown man on the Corniche weeping uncontrollably. We have just learned that they were suicide bombers too.