A new report reveals that senior Egyptian army doctors were ordered to operate without anesthetic on demonstrators who were wounded during protests against the military rule in 2012.

Extracts of a leaked report published in the Guardian on Thursday, said that doctors, medics and soldiers attacked protesters at Cairo’s Kobri el-Qoba military hospital.

The British paper said the report was the result of an investigation into military and police malpractice since 2011 and was commissioned by President Mohamed Morsi.

The report included testimony from doctors and protesters over the treatment of the demonstrators at the military hospital in May 2012.

The investigation revealed that a senior military doctor gave orders to other doctors to operate on injured protesters without anesthetic or sterilization, the paper said.

A doctor who was on duty at the hospital said in his testimony that military doctors, soldiers and medics “assaulted protesters by severely beating them and verbally assaulting them.”

A senior military officer also “ordered doctors not to give any sorts of anesthetic during treatment or stitching. He also ordered that their wounds should not be cleaned,” the doctor stated.


He also said a senior military officer attacked the wounded protesters and then “ordered his soldiers to lock them up in the hospital basement.”

Earlier leaks of the report accused the Egyptian army of torture, killings and forced disappearances during the 2011 revolution that ousted former dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Heba Morayef, the director of Human Rights Watch in Egypt, said the report was “incredibly” important. “The army always said they took the side of protesters and never fired a bullet against them. This report is the first time that there has been any official condemnation of the military’s responsibility for torture, killing, or disappearances.”

On Thursday, President Morsi promoted three army leaders at a meeting of the Supreme Military Council. He said the top commanders “deserved our respect.”

Egypt’s new constitution, backed by Morsi, gives the country’s military sole authority to investigate its own officials. However, the prosecution of soldiers is impossible by law.

Many Egyptians complain that the new government has failed to establish a ministry to assist the families of those still missing, making it almost impossible to find traces of their loved ones.