ElySioNs
Mercenary
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At the same time, Saladin sent some of his troops to the quarter of al-Mansura ('the Victorious'), south of the Bab Zuwayla gate, where the black Africans had their homes. There they set fire to the quarter, and attacked the black Africans' women and children. At news of this attack on their defenceless families, the black Africans broke and began retreating to the Bab Zuwayla.[32][36][3] Saladin's reserves occupied the side streets, forcing the black Africans to retreat down the main thoroughfare and depriving them of any ability to evade via the side streets or using them to flank their pursuers.[37] The black Africans offered only occasional resistance in isolated houses, which the pursuing Syrians often simply torched.[3] Some Armenian archers tried to stem the Syrians' advance, but their barracks, located near the Fatimid palaces, were likewise torched, killing them all.[3][4]
The black Africans did not manage to escape the city: at the market of the sword sellers, some 550 metres (1,800 ft) north of Bab Zuwayla, they found themselves hemmed in from all sides. Driven at last to Bab Zuwayla, they found its doors closed, and agreed to submit. Saladin agreed, provided they left Cairo, and granted them safe passage to Giza on the other side of the Nile. There the black Africans were attacked and killed by Turan-Shah, with only a few surviving
