Back in Tahrir, business booms

Tahrir Square has turned into a self-sustaining city again with food stands, clinics, hospitals, security checkpoints and tents around every corner — this time however, much of the medical and food supplies have been donated.

Still, street vendors are doing good business in the square, selling hot and cold drinks, food, flags, snacks and trinkets.

Nationwide protests demanding the ruling military council hand over power to a civilian authority built up over the week, galvanizing into mass demonstrations on Friday.

As Tahrir Square once again finds itself at the epicenter, the sit-in has rebirthed what was dubbed the Republic of Tahrir during the January uprising which toppled Hosni Mubarak.

While it means booming business for street vendors, it has also highlighted the spirit of volunteerism and donations, which have flooded in worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Clashes that lasted for days, and left more than 40 dead and 2,000 injured, subsided on Friday, but during the violence, medical supplies were donated to the square’s field hospitals along with protective gear and food.

Wailing ambulances ferried the injured to the field hospitals dotted around the square, amidst a heavy cloud of potent tear gas, with Omar Makram Mosque being one of the main locations.

Hundreds of volunteers from around the city bought gas masks, protective eye gear, medical equipment, surgical supplies, as well as antiseptic medicine to the square.

“The amount of medical supplies we have now is unbelievable,” said Ahmed Gamal, one of the volunteers from the Tahrir Doctors group.

Gamal says in Omar Makram Mosque, there are supplies worth over LE 100,000, with similar estimates at other locations.

“We not only have medicine, but people have brought beds, stretchers…[now] we are asking people to focus on bringing other necessities such as food, blankets or gas masks,” he said, mainly for the people who are sitting in.

Not far from the mosque is Kasr El Dobara Church, which has also been turned into a makeshift hospital.