Sarah Carr reports on the solidarity conference with the Qursaya Island residents…

“I was born here, my father was born here and my grandfather was born here. The army came to frighten us when it should be protecting us. We cannot sleep at night, cannot work without worrying that at any second something might happen to us,” said one resident.

“I was born on this land and I’ll die here. We have never asked for anything from the state, and we want nothing from it now — except that it leaves us alone,” one resident said.

“I’m a farmer. If I leave the island what will I do? I don’t know any other trade. Should I sit on a balcony and hunt birds?” he added.

[One of the Qursaya Island families attending the solidarity conference at Cairo's Press Syndicate. Photo by Hossam el-Hamalawy.]