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Scores of Demonstrators Killed in Egypt

by VOA News July 27, 2013

Egypt's health ministry says at least 65 people were killed in Cairo on Saturday after clashes erupted between security forces and supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi.

Health ministry officials say nine other people have been killed in the coastal city of Alexandria, since violence erupted on Friday.

The violence late Friday and into Saturday marks one of the bloodiest periods since the army removed Morsi from power earlier this month. But Morsi supporters have vowed to continue their protests in spite of the unrest.

Morsi has been held in secret military detention since July 3. The official MENA news agency said the Islamist leader is being detained while officials investigate charges he conspired with the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Story continues below photo gallery

Security forces say they were confronted by violent protesters marching from a Muslim Brotherhood encampment in Cairo on Saturday. However, Morsi supporters have blamed security forces for much of violence.

At a Saturday news conference, a spokesman for Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement Ahmed Arif said security forces had fired on demonstrators. He also criticized Egyptian state media for what he described as biased coverage of the unrest.

Doctors at the field hospital in Cairo said they were being overwhelmed. The facility is located at the site of a sit-in in Cairo's Nasr City, a Muslim Brotherhood stronghold, where protesters have been camped for more than three weeks.

VOA correspondent Elizabeth Arrott in Nasr City says several make-shift brick walls have been built between where security forces and emergency personnel are massed and the edge of the protesters' encampment on Nasr street. It is unclear who built them.
Streets are strewn with rubble and tear gas was still thick in the area.

The interior minister said Saturday that the interim government hopes to dismantle the protest camp using 'legal means.' He also said Morsi would most likely be taken to the Torah prison near Cairo, where former president Hosni Mubarak and members of his cabinet were detained following the country's 2011 uprising.

In Alexandria, Egyptian authorities said people inside a mosque fired shots into the surrounding neighborhood on Saturday, while Morsi supporters said gunmen were shooting into the mosque.

Morsi's presidency and his subsequent ouster has bitterly divided Egyptians.

World leaders are expressing increasing concern about the rising violence, the polarization of Egyptian society, and the army's crackdown on Brotherhood leaders.

The Egyptian military dominated Egyptian politics for decades until the overthrow of Mubarak, himself an ex-military commander. It has a long history of animosity toward the Muslim Brotherhood, which is Egypt's most organized political party.