The Egyptian military has been using a banned chemical agent to deal
with hundreds of thousands of protesters, according to several news
sources.
At least 23 Egyptians have died and more than 1,700 have succumbed to a
lethal gas military forces have been using during the past three days in
clashes in and around Cairo's Tahrir Square.
The International Business Times reports that demonstrators have been
struck with "dangerous levels of CR gas over the past two days of
protests" and Australia's The Age said Wednesday that the canisters are
marked "Made in the USA."
CR gas is an intense and lethal version of CS gas, called "tear gas," widely used by police for crowd control.
Wikipedia notes that CR gas has effects that are "are approximately 6 to
10 times more powerful than those of CS gas." CR causes intense skin
pain and irritation, and can lead to blindness and death by
asphyxiation.
CR gas was widely used by South African police during the height of
Apartheid in the 1980s and its use was widely condemned by international
bodies.
Former IAEA official Mohammed ElBaradei has confirmed in Twitter that
Egyptian forces have used "tear gas with [a] nerve agent."
The Arabist, an Egyptian blog covering the protests Tuesday, quoted an
Egyptian neurology expert as saying this "is not the regular tear gas
used in January [during protests]" and was causing "extra-pyramidal
symptoms ~ involuntary jerks in extremities and trunk mimicking a
convulsive seizure."
''It is some kind of neuro-toxic nerve gas,'' doctor Mohamed Aden, who
usually works at the Cairo University hospitals, told Australia's The
Age. ''We are seeing people whose upper respiratory tract is in
convulsion ~ we have to give them diazepam to relax the muscles to allow
them to begin to breathe again.''
The Australian paper continued: "A young man was rushed into the clinic,
unconscious and fitting, as the doctor spoke. For at least five minutes
it was touch and go as medics administered treatment. Finally he drew
breath and the team moved to one of the four patients who had just been
carried in, a man with gunshot wound to a leg."© Newsmax. All rights reserved.
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