Islamist leaders today sought to spark a new uprising in Egypt after at least 40 supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi were feared killed outside a Cairo barracks where he is believed to be detained.
More than 300 people were also reported injured, including at least four children and a six-month-old baby in the shootings near the headquarters of the Republican Guard.
The bloodshed deepened Egypt’s political crisis, escalating the struggle between the army, which overthrew Islamist leader Mr Morsi last week after mass demonstrations, and the Muslim Brotherhood, which has condemned the military coup.
The military said “a terrorist group” had tried to storm the Republican Guard compound and one officer had been killed and 40 wounded. Soldiers returned fire when they were attacked by armed assailants, according to a military source.
But the Mulsim Brotherhood’s official spokesman, Gehad El-Haddad, said the shootings happened in the early morning while Islamists were praying and staging a peaceful sit-in outside the barracks. Witnesses told the Evening Standard that at around 4am, just as protesters were coming to the end of the dawn prayers, tear gas was fired at them and gun shots rang out. One said that soldiers continued firing at demonstrators even as they fled, with some reportedly shot in the back. “It’s a disaster,” said Ayman Mohamed, 46. “Can you imagine that the military in your country are going to kill you?”
At a nearby hospital, one doctor said he had seen 11 bodies. They had been gunned down by bullets to the head, neck and chest, he said. “The army are dogs,” he added.
Amid the confusion and conflicting accounts, the Islamic group, whose political wing is the Freedom and Justice Party, called on Egyptians to revolt against those who “want to steal” the revolution.
“The Freedom and Justice Party calls on the great Egyptian people to rise up against those who want to steal their revolution with tanks and armoured vehicles, even over the dead bodies of the people,” a statement on the party’s Facebook page said. The exact number of deaths was not clear today but Ahmed al-Ansari, deputy head of emergency services, put it at 42 and 322 wounded.
Al Jazeera’s Egypt news channel broadcast footage of what appeared to be five men killed in the violence, and medics carrying out resuscitation on an unconscious man at a makeshift clinic near pro-Morsi sit-in. First aiders were seen attempting mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a man, while wounded people were being ferried to the field hospital on motorbikes, given treatment and taken away in ambulances.
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The killings immediately hit political attempts to stabilise the country, with the ultra-conservative Islamist Nour party, which initially supported the military intervention, withdrawing from stalled negotiations to form an interim government before fresh elections.
The Nour party had already rejected two liberal-minded candidates for prime minister proposed by interim head of state Adly Mansour.
