401 Arrested over Cairo Clashes that Left 7 Dead
Egyptian security forces arrested more than 400 supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi in one part of Cairo alone following deadly clashes overnight, a security source said on Tuesday.
The 401 arrests were all made in the central Ramses area, where two people were killed in late-night violence, the official MENA news agency quoted the security source as saying.
There were also deadly clashes overnight in other parts of the capital.
In all, seven people died and 261 people were injured, health officials said.
Two people died in clashes around Ramses near Tahrir Square, while another five were killed in Giza, emergency services chief Mohammed Sultan told Agence France Presse, adding that security force personnel were among the injured.
Health ministry official Khaled al-Khatib gave the same toll, cited by the official MENA news agency.
Khatib said 124 of the 261 people injured were still in hospital.
Thousands of pro-Morsi protesters took to the streets of Cairo on Monday evening after the Ramadan iftar meal to demand the return of the Islamist president, who has been in custody since hours after the July 3 coup.
Some of them blocked the October 6 bridge over the Nile in the heart of Cairo, where security forces fired tear gas to drive them back, an AFP correspondent reported.
The protesters responded by hurling rocks at the security forces, triggering fresh volleys of tear gas, with clashes continuing in adjacent Ramses Square and elsewhere late into the night.
The clashes were the first in the Egyptian capital since dozens of pro-Morsi demonstrators were shot dead outside an elite military headquarters on Monday of last week.
The latest deaths brings to more than 100 the number of people killed in Egypt since the coup, according to a tally of confirmed deaths compiled by AFP.
The bloodshed came just hours after Under Secretary of State Bill Burns, on the first visit to Egypt by a senior U.S. official since Morsi's ouster, called for an end to the violence rocking the Arab world's most populous nation.
Source: Agence France Presse
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://naharnet.com/stories/en/90732 |