"CAIRO (Reuters) – Syrian Ghassan el-Shahada enjoyed tolerance and an affordable life when he first fled to Egypt as a refugee. But everything changed after the army took over in July.
Where once they were welcomed as brothers, Syrian refugees are now taunted in Cairo’s streets – an open hostility fuelled by a media campaign that casts them as “terrorists” allied with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and former president Mohamed Mursi, who was overthrown by the army on July 3.
Ghassan gives an example of the remarks directed at him when he is out selling Syrian bread.
“Bashar (Assad) is too good for you, he should hit you harder,” he whispers, when his son, 5, and daughter, 3, are out of earshot.
The family now plans to leave illegally aboard a boat from Alexandria to Italy, less than a year after fleeing the civil war in Damascus.
“There are no good options,” Ghassan’s wife Nahad says quietly.
It’s an unexpected turn of events for the Syrians who found refuge in Egypt in the year Mursi was president....."
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