Egypt Health Ministry says death toll from nationwide clashes, police raids rises to 95, with 874 wounded in push by Egyptian military to remove protestors demanding reinstatement of deposed President Mohamed Morsi.
Egyptian authorities have declared a state of emergency as violent clashes between supporters of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and the military that ousted him spread across the country Wednesday, killing dozens in a push to remove protesters from numerous points throughout Cairo.
Egypt’s health ministry said on Wednesday that 95 people had been killed on Wednesday in a police raid on supporters of deposed President Mohamed Mursi at a Cairo protest camp and clashes nationwide.”The dead are both from police and civilians. We are waiting to get more details,” said the ministry’s spokesman, Hamdi Abdel Karim, adding that 874 people had been wounded
The Islamist demonstrators who were demanding the reinstatement of deposed President Mohamed Morsi, his Muslim Brotherhood movement said.
The Egyptian presidency announced a one-month state of emergency across the country on Wednesday and ordered the armed forces to help the Interior Ministry enforce security.
The announcement made on state TV followed countrywide clashes between supporters of Morsi and the security forces.
The Health Ministry said 13 people were killed near the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque during the crackdown, including six police and eight civilians. The official death toll could well rise.
A television cameraman working for Britain’s Sky News was shot and killed in Cairo, Sky News said. Cameraman Mick Deane, 61, had worked for the BSkyB owned news channel for 15 years, based in Washington and then Jerusalem.
“The loss of a much-loved colleague will be deeply felt across Sky News. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife and family,” John Ryley, head of Sky News, said in a statement.
At least five people were killed in the Egyptian city of Suez, a health ministry official said, when supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi tried to storm a government building there.
Witnesses said an armored vehicle was set on fire during the attempt to storm the provincial governor’s office.
At least a further 17 people were killed on Wednesday in the Egyptian province of Fayoum, south of Cairo, a hospital official said, following fighting at police stations between supporters of Morsi and the security forces.
Morsi supporters attacked at least two police stations in Fayoum, setting fire to police vehicles outside one, witnesses said. There were also clashes outside the provincial governor’s offices.
Gunfire rang out as protesters ran away from Rabaa, and clouds of black smoke rose above the sites. Armored vehicles moved in alongside bulldozers which began clearing away tents, and one witness said he saw 15 bodies at a field hospital.
“It is nasty inside, they are destroying our tents. We can’t breath inside and many people are in hospital,” Murad Ahmed said at the edge of the sprawling camp, where Muslim Brotherhood guards had positioned sandbags in anticipation of a police raid.
Live television footage showed medics wearing gas masks and swimming goggles as they treated the wounded.
Two members of the Egyptian security forces were shot dead as they tried to disperse protesters, the state news agency reported.
The operation, which began at around 7 a.m., came after international efforts failed to mediate an end to a six-week political standoff between Morsi’s supporters and the army-backed government which took power after his ouster on July 3.
With the Brotherhood calling on supporters to take to the streets, the violence risked further destabilizing the most populous Arab nation and endangering hopes for democracy.
A number of leaders of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood were arrested, an official said.
“We have arrested a number of Brotherhood leaders but it’s too early to announce their names,” General Abdel Fattah Othman, a senior official in the Interior Ministry, told the privately-owned CBC TV channel.
SHOOTING FROM ROOFTOPS
The breakup of the camps would strip the Brotherhood of its main leverage against the government. Some of the group’s leaders have been arrested or are wanted and their assets frozen in one of the toughest crackdowns it has ever faced.
Television pictures showed security forces shooting from nearby roofs and protesters reported clouds of tear gas.
“Tear gas was falling from the sky like rain. There are no ambulances inside. They closed every entrance,” said protester Khaled Ahmed, 20, a university student wearing a hard hat with tears streaming down his face.
“There are women and children in there. God help them. This is a siege, a military attack on a civilian protest camp.”
A Reuters correspondent saw dozens of people lying in the street with bullet and birdshot wounds. Pools of blood were everywhere.
“At 7 a.m. they came. Helicopters from the top and bulldozers from below. They smashed through our walls. Police and soldiers, they fired tear gas at children,” said teacher Saleh Abdulaziz, 39, clutching a bleeding wound on his head.
“They continued to fire at protesters even when we begged them to stop.”
Protesters ripped branches off trees to try to put out fires that spread through tents. Others smashed the pavement, grabbed chunks of cement and hurled them at police.
Egypt has been convulsed by political and economic turmoil since the 2011 uprising that ended 30 years of autocratic rule by US-backed President Hosni Mubarak, and the country is now more polarized than any time for many years.
There is deepening alarm in the West over the course taken by Egypt, which receives around $1.3 billion in military aid from the United States each year.
It also has a peace treaty with close US ally Israel and controls the Suez Canal, a vital waterway for global trade.
More than 300 people have already died in political violence since the army overthrew Morsi on July 3, including dozens of his supporters killed by security forces in two separate earlier incidents.
Morsi became Egypt’s first freely elected leader in June 2012 but failed to tackle deep economic malaise and worried many Egyptians with his apparent efforts to tighten Islamist rule.
Source: Jerusalem Post
