August 15, 2013.

Egypt Death Toll Passes 500 as Rally Looms

"Just the man I was looking for," said a voice at Winston's back.

The death toll from Egypt's wave of violence on Wednesday climbed to at least 525, fueling anger and deepening the political cleavages in the Arab world's most populous nation.

He turned round. It was his friend Syme, who worked in the Research Department. Perhaps "friend" was not exactly the right word. You did not have friends nowadays, you had comrades; but there were some comrades whose society was pleasanter than that of others. Syme was a philologist, a specialist in Newspeak. Indeed, he was one of the enormous team of experts now engaged in compiling the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak dictionary. He was a tiny creature, smaller than Winston, with dark hair and large, protuberant eyes, at once mournful and derisive, which seemed to search your face closely while he was speaking to you.

Cairo's streets were mostly calm Thursday morning in neighborhoods not affected by violence the previous day, as the overnight military curfew kept many people at home. But funerals for dead demonstrators and security officials that kicked off in the afternoon, as well as plans by supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood to restart their demonstrations, are likely to inflame tensions later in the day.

"I wanted to ask you whether you'd got any razor blades," he said.

The Ministry of Health reported that the number of people killed across the country on Wednesday rose to 525 people, with 3,717 injured, after Egypt's military regime launched a bloody crackdown on Islamist protestors in Cairo, which sparked a day of violence across the country. Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said 43 policemen died in the assault, the Associated Press reported.