11 Feb 2011

The view from Tahrir Square as masses pour in

Cairo is alive and seething with masses of people. I’ve just walked from Tahrir Square around several kilometres of streets and every one of them is heaving with people. In the 18 day standoff I’ve never seen the square so full.

As fast as people vacate to target government buildings, more come streaming in to replace them. And yet the revolution seems formless. Sudden bursts of activity sweep a few hundred marches out of the square and off in a particular direction. It seems to be leaderless.

I have been talking to the actor Khaled Abdalla he’s a British-Egyptian actor who starred in the Kite Runner and other films. We spoke to him last night on the phone from the square, today I managed to hunt him down in the flesh.

Last night his infectiously emotional father and respected London doctor was in our studio and the son was in Tahrir. Tonight he gives us a very vivid sense of where we now are and what really happened yesterday, it’s worth catching on tonight’s Channel 4 News.

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