- Natasha Smith attacked by a ‘group of animals’ who stripped her naked
- Only escaped after she was handed a burka and men’s clothes
- ‘I was tossed around like fresh meat among starving lions’
A British journalist was brutally sexually assaulted in Cairo’s Tahrir Square as thousands of Egyptians gathered to celebrate the nation’s presidential election results.
Natasha Smith, 21, has detailed how she was violently attacked by a ‘group of animals’ who stripped her naked, scratched and clenched her breasts and ‘forced their fingers inside her’.
She only escaped by donning men’s clothes and a burka and being whisked away to safety by two other men.
Assaulted: Natasha Smith has written about her horrific ordeal in Tahrir Square on her blogWriting on her blog, she said: ‘All I could see was leering faces, more and more faces sneering and jeering as I was tossed around like fresh meat among starving lions.’
The incident occured on Sunday when Egyptians flooded the area celebrating the announcement Mohammed Morsi would be the nation’s first democratically elected leader.
Smith, who will graduate with an MA in International Journalism from University College Falmouth in August, was in Tahrir to film the crowd for a documentary on women’s rights.
But the initial ‘atmosphere of jubilation, excitement, and happiness’, quickly turned against her.
She said: ‘Just as I realised I had reached the end of the bridge, I noticed the crowd became thicker, and decided immediately to turn around to avoid Tahrir Square.
‘My friends and I tried to leave. I tried to put my camera back in my rucksack. But in a split second, everything changed.
‘Men had been groping me for a while, but suddenly, something shifted. I found myself being dragged from my male friend, groped all over, with increasing force and aggression.
