Fireworks are set off near police and anti-Mursi protesters by supporters of deposed Egyptian president Mohammed Mursi during clashes in Nasr city area, east of Cairo, yesterday.
Cairo: Egyptian security forces and armed men in plain clothes killed scores of Muslim Brotherhood protesters yesterday as the brutal and organised crackdown on the Islamist party and its supporters appeared to be gathering pace.
In what is the worst single mass killing in Egypt since the fall of president Hosni Mubarak two-and-a-half years ago, a Brotherhood spokesman said 66 of the party’s supporters were shot and killed on the fringes of a sit-in at a Cairo mosque demanding the return of former president Mohammed Mursi, who was deposed on 3 July, and another 61 were “brain dead” on life-support machines. Government officials claim that the number of dead was 65, a death toll greater than the Republican Guards massacre on 8 July that saw 51 killed.
The deaths came as men in helmets and black police fatigues fired on crowds gathered before dawn on the fringes of a round-the-clock sit-in near a mosque in north-east Cairo, Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement said.
“They are not shooting to wound, they are shooting to kill,” said Brotherhood spokesman Gehad El Haddad. “The bullet wounds are in the head and chest.” The Guardian
