EGYPT: A make shift hospital in a Cairo mosque fills up with dead and wounded, as security officials say around 50 people have been killed in the Egyptian capital

Record ID: 861050

  • Title: EGYPT: A make shift hospital in a Cairo mosque fills up with dead and wounded, as security officials say around 50 people have been killed in the Egyptian capital
  • Date: 16th August 2013
  • Summary: MORE OF WOUNDED LYING ON THE FLOOR INJURED MAN BEING BROUGHT INTO MOSQUE
  • Embargoed: 31st August 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Egypt
  • City:
  • Country: Egypt
  • Topics: Conflict,General
  • Reuters ID: LVA5YH682N19XH2TXWNXJORYIC8G
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Muslim Brotherhood protests plunged into violence across Egypt on Friday (August 16), with around 50 killed in Cairo alone on a "Day of Rage" called by Islamist followers of ousted President Mohamed Mursi to denounce a police crackdown.
    Automatic gunfire echoed across Cairo and black smoke billowed from the capital's huge Ramses Square, a military helicopter hovering low overhead looking down on the chaos.
    A Reuters witness saw the bodies of 27 people, apparently hit by gunfire and birdshot, wrapped in white sheets in a mosque. A Reuters photographer said security forces opened fire from numerous directions when a police station was attacked.
    ''We are in the field hospital in Al Fateh mosque and until now we have 27 martyrs and a very large number of wounded," a doctor at the mosque said.
    At least 20 people died in clashes elsewhere in Egypt.
    The violence followed Wednesday's (August 14) assault by security forces on two Brotherhood sit-ins in Cairo that left hundreds dead, as the military-backed government tried to end weeks of turbulence that has pushed the Arab world's most populous state to the brink of disaster.
    The army deployed armoured vehicles on major roads around the capital and the Interior Ministry said police would use live ammunition against anyone threatening public buildings.
    Emergency services said eight protesters were killed in clashes in the Mediterranean town of Damietta, five in Fayoum south of Cairo, four in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia and four in the Nile delta town of Tanta. One person was killed in Alexandria, Egypt's second city.
    A security official said on Friday that 24 members of the Egyptian police force had been killed since late Thursday night across the country.
    The Brotherhood accuses the military of staging a coup when it ousted Mursi on July 3. Liberal and youth activists who backed the military saw the move as a positive response to public demands.
    But some fear Egypt is turning back into the kind of police state that kept the disgraced Hosni Mubarak in power for 30 years before his removal in 2011, as security institutions recover their confidence and reassert control.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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