Video: Egypt Prison Break

Omar Shaath, a resident of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, told Human Rights Watch that Egyptian authorities detained and held him without charge for more than a year. On the afternoon of January 28, 2011, Shaath said, prisoners in the criminal wing of the Abu Zabaal prison began burning food supplies and attempting to escape. Shaath shared videos that he and other prisoners made with their mobile phones during the prison break. The first video shows two wounded men hiding in a narrow space inside the prison; as gunfire is heard in the background, one of the men is dazed and is bleeding from his ear, and is unable to stand. The second shows a man in a suit holding an AK-47-style assault rifle directing officials dressed in olive-drab sweaters, pants and berets, and several prison guards preventing prisoners from leaving a building. The third shows a burning storage cylinder on the roof of the prison.