(August 2014) Rab’a Square itself, in the days before August 14 failed to specify when the dispersal would take place. Warnings on the morning of the dispersal were not heard by many and did not provide protesters sufficient time to leave before security forces resorted to forcible dispersal. The vast majority of the demonstrators interviewed by Human Rights Watch in connection with this event said they did not hear the looped pre-recorded warnings security forces played over loudspeakers near at least two of the entrances to the sit-in minutes before opening fire. Security forces then besieged demonstrators for most of the day, attacking from each of the five main entrances to the square and leaving no safe exit until the end of the day, including for injured protesters in need of medical attention and those desperate to escape. Instead, in many cases security forces fired on those who sought to escape, witnesses told Human Rights Watch.

The indiscriminate and deliberate use of lethal force resulted in one of the world’s largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history. By way of contrast, credible estimates indicate that Chinese government forces killed between 400-800 protesters largely over a 24-hour span during the Tiananmen Massacre on June 3-4, 1989 and that Uzbek forces killed roughly similar numbers in one day during the 2005 Andijan Massacre.

The dispersal of the Rab’a Square sit-in lasted 12 hours, roughly from sunrise to sunset. Police commenced their assault, in coordination with army forces, at around 6:30 a.m. by lobbing teargas canisters and shooting birdshot pellets at protesters located near the entrances to the square. They quickly, within minutes at some entrances, escalated to live fire, according to dozens of witnesses.

Led by army bulldozers, police slowly advanced from each of the five major entrances to the square—two on Nasr Street, two on Tayaran Street, and one on Anwar al-Mufti Street behind the Rab’a al-Adawiya Mosque—in the early morning hours, destroying makeshift fences erected by protesters and other structures in their path. The advancing forces were supported by snipers deployed on top of adjacent government buildings.