The residents of North Sinai’s al-Rawdah village cast their ballots in Egypt’s presidential elections to take revenge of the brutal attacks of militants.
Early estimates put the election turnout in al-Rawdah, 20 kilometers west of al-Arish, on the second day of elections at 45 percent.
Several survivors of the so-called “worshipers attack” around five months ago, which left 311 people including 27 children dead, spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat.
Salem Mahmoud “hoped that the elections would lead to the eradication of ISIS gunmen.”
Mahmoud told the newspaper that his father and brother were killed in the attack that was carried out last November by ISIS militants on al-Rawdah’s mosque during Friday prayers.
Still grieving his loved ones, he said his widowed mother insisted to head to the ballot station to cast her vote for the first time.
Another survivor, Suleiman Shmait, who has lost his only son in the attack, told Asharq Al-Awsat that several of the village’s residents who had left their homes, returned to have a say at the ballot box.
“Many, who live like Bedouins, walked huge distances to come and vote,” he said. “Among them are women who have lost their children in the mosque attack.”
Out of the village’s 1,500 eligible voters, around 650 cast their ballots,” Shmait told the newspaper.
Mansour al-Qudairi, a village resident, said the election process at al-Rawdah was highly organized and calm.
The voting was a “message from the village to the world that terrorism will not defeat us,” he said.
The villagers played their role in Egypt’s elections like any other area in the country, Qudairi added.
The elections are held as the army, navy, air force and police conduct Operation Sinai 2018 that was launched last month to target terrorist and criminal elements and organizations in north and central Sinai, parts of the Nile delta and the western desert.
