The death toll from the dispersal of Friday protests staged by supporters of ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi has risen to seven, as violence continued to mar the first anniversary of the bloody dispersal of two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo and Giza.
“A young man named Wael Said was shot with live fire during a protest in [eastern Cairo's] Matariya district,” a source from the National Alliance for the Defense of Legitimacy, Morsi’s main support bloc, told Anadolu Agency.
Another protester, Mohamed Essam, 15, was killed moments later at the same protest, the source added.
Another alliance source said two other protesters had been killed by live fire when security forces dispersed a protest in Giza’s town of Hawamdia.
Earlier Friday, another alliance source said three people had been gunned down when security forces dispersed a pro-Morsi protest on Giza’s Al-Haram Street, including one local resident who had not been participating in the rally.
Mohamed Sultan, head of the Health Ministry’s ambulance service, told AA that only four deaths had been confirmed, while confirming at least 23 injuries.
“What we can confirm is the death of four people: two from Haram Street, a third in Hawamdia and a fourth in Matariya,” he told Anadolu Agency.
Friday’s protests were called for by the alliance to mark the first anniversary of the killing of hundreds of pro-Morsi protesters when security forces violently cleared their twin sit-ins in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square and Giza’s Nahda Square.
On Thursday, at least seven protesters were killed when security forces dispersed rallies marking the anniversary, according to sources from the pro-Morsi alliance.
Egypt’s Health Ministry, however, said that only four deaths had been confirmed, including that of a policeman.
193 protesters arrested
Egypt’s Interior Ministry, which controls the country’s sprawling police force, said Friday that it had arrested 193 supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood group during protests marking the first anniversary of the bloody dispersal of two protest camps in Cairo and Giza.
In a statement, the ministry said “Brotherhood supporters” had gathered after Friday prayers in several provinces and attacked citizens with birdshot and firearms, prompting intervention by security forces.
Some Brotherhood supporters were arrested in possession of firearms, Molotov cocktails, fireworks and masks, according to the ministry’s press release.
Ensuing clashes left three people dead, including two members of the “terrorist” Brotherhood group, the ministry asserted.
Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader who won Egypt’s first free presidential election in 2012, was ousted by the military in July of last year following protests against his single year in office.
Former army chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, widely seen as the architect of Morsi’s ouster and subsequent imprisonment, was declared winner of a presidential poll conducted in May.
Source:World Bulletin
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