may be a quiet death

Hasnaa Mohamed
Sep 9, 2018 · 2 min read

“Some scientists think that we may be able to travel through black holes. Do you think death is a black hole?” Hasnaa Khamis, 11, asked in her last article few hours before she passed away.

This is the last time we write about Hasnaa, so may the whole world listens that Egyptian girl’s last appeal.

She has suicided days before Trump’s speech about how “fantastic” Sisi’s policies are, and weeks before Egypt receives 2nd delegation of the loan from IMF, US$12-billion, which supposed to be assigned for increasing social payment.

First time we saw Hasnaa, she was playing in her small poor village in Giza Governorate. We went there to write about the village’s tragedy when her eyes caught our hearts and cameras. She wasn’t shy like her mates, she approached and asked with a wonderful smile “Are you Journalists?” We said yes, “Me too, and I have my own magazine as well” she said.

At this moment I decided to write about her on a German website called “correspondents”, and described her dream to educate, grow up and work as a professional journalist. I wrote her little great story, just like her, and here I write it again for more people.

Hasnaa, 11, a small girl in a small village in Egypt had her very simple dream to go to school like any other child in the world. Her small village had only one school, a primary one, then girls have to leave school.

Our little girl wanted to overcome that problem with her elder sister’s help. She went to “Kottab” –unofficial classes with one teacher- and started to launch her primitive magazine. It was few papers with some of the village’s news and information about agriculture, the villager’s most work.

After two years, the Egyptian pound dropped pointedly as the government decided to float currency which caused huge inflation and mostly all supplies and services got more expensive. These conditions forced the “kottab” to close, and Hasnaa’s father had to make her leave school as well.

Her dream clashed before her eyes. She won’t be educated, nor be a journalist. The little girl’s heart couldn’t afford that and decided to end her life by cutting her hands’ blood-vessels.

After Hasnaa’s death, I knew she wasn’t alone and 9 others from the same village also suicided, beside 60 from different places in Egypt. Although Sisi named 2016 “The youth’s year”, 4250 suicides was recorded in that year.

“Hey my little angel, you’re dead now and this message won’t reach you, but I will not ever forget you nor your eyes and smile. You once told me to face my cancer and beat it to stay with you, but you were the one who leaved and passed away. May your soul RIP and all your dreams come true in heaven. I’ll always miss you till we meet again in the other life”.

Hasnaa Mohamed

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storyteller,producer