More
than 200 dead after Egypt forces crush protest camps
Egyptian
security forces crushed the protest camps of thousands of supporters
of the deposed Islamist president on Wednesday, shooting almost 200
of them dead in the bloodiest day in decades and polarizing the Arab
world's most populous nation.
14
August, 2013
At
least 235 people were killed in all, including at least 43 police,
and 2,000 wounded, a health official said, in fierce clashes that
spread beyond Cairo to towns and cities around Egypt. Deposed
president Mohamed Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood said the death toll of
what it called a "massacre" was far higher.
While
bodies wrapped in carpets were carried to a makeshift morgue near the
Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, the army-backed rulers declared a one-month
state of emergency, restoring to the military the unfettered power it
wielded for decades before a pro-democracy uprising toppled autocrat
Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
Interior
Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said 43 police were among the dead. Security
forces had completely cleared two protest camps in the capital and
would not tolerate any further sit-ins, he said, vowing to restore
Mubarak-era security.
Prime
Minister Hazem el-Beblawi defended the use of force, condemned by the
United States and European governments, saying the authorities had no
choice but to act to end "the spread of anarchy".
"We
found that matters had reached a point that no self-respecting state
could accept," he said in a televised address.
The
authorities imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in Cairo and several other
cities including Alexandria, Egypt's second city on the Mediterranean
coast.
The
use of force prompted Mohamed ElBaradei, a former U.N. diplomat and
the most prominent liberal supporter of Mursi's overthrow, to resign
as vice president, saying the conflict could have been resolved by
peaceful means.
"The
beneficiaries of what happened today are those call for violence,
terrorism and the most extreme groups," he said.
Thousands
of Mursi's supporters had been camped at two major sites in Cairo
since before he was toppled on July 3, and had vowed not to leave the
streets until he was returned to power.
The
assault, ending a six-week stand-off, defied international pleas for
restraint and a negotiated political solution. Straddling the Suez
Canal, a vital global trade route, Egypt is a key U.S. ally at the
heart of the Middle East and was the first Arab state to make peace
with Israel.
U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry, European Union foreign policy chief
Catherine Ashton and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon all deplored
the use of force and called for the state of emergency to be lifted
as soon as possible.
VIOLENCE
SPREADS
A
U.S. official told Reuters that Washington was considering cancelling
the biennial "Bright Star" joint military exercise with
Egypt, due this year, after the latest violence, in what would be a
direct snub to the Egyptian armed forces.
Violence
rippled out from Cairo, with Mursi supporters and security forces
clashing in the cities of Alexandria, Minya, assiut, Fayoum and Suez
and in Buhayra and Beni Suef provinces.
The
bloodshed also effectively ended for now the open political role of
the Brotherhood, with the harshest crackdown on a movement that
survived underground for 85 years to emerge after the 2011 uprising
and win every election held since.
Security
officials initially said senior Brotherhood figures Mohamed
El-Beltagi and Essam El-Erian had been arrested, joining Mursi
himself and other Brotherhood leaders in jail, but later acknowledged
they had not been captured. Beltagi's 17-year-old daughter was among
the dead.
Beltagi
warned of wider conflict, and urged people to take to the streets to
oppose the head of the armed forces, who deposed Mursi on July 3
following mass protests.
"I
swear by God that if you stay in your homes, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
will embroil this country so that it becomes Syria. Abdel Fattah
al-Sisi will push this nation to a civil war so that he escapes the
gallows."
ElBaradei's
political movement, the anti-Islamist National Salvation Front, did
not share his qualms, declaring that "Egypt has held its head
high in the sky announcing victory over political groups that abuse
religion".
Since
Mursi was toppled, the security forces had twice before killed scores
of protesters in attempts to drive Mursi's followers off the streets.
But they had held back from a full-scale assault on the tented camp
where followers and their families have lived behind makeshift
barricades.
After
the assault on the camp began, desperate residents recited Koranic
verses and screamed "God help us! God help us!" while
helicopters hovered overhead and armored bulldozers ploughed over
their makeshift defenses.
Reuters
journalists on the scene saw masked police in dark uniforms pour out
of police vans with sticks and tear gas canisters. They tore down
tents and set them ablaze.
"They
smashed through our walls. Police and soldiers, they fired tear gas
at children," said Saleh Abdulaziz, 39, a secondary school
teacher clutching a bleeding wound on his head.
DEAD
BODIES, SMASHED SKULLS
After
shooting with live ammunition began, wounded and dead lay on the
streets among pools of blood. An area of the camp that had been a
playground and art exhibition for the children of protesters was
turned into a war-zone field hospital.
Seven
dead bodies were lined up in the street, one of them a teenager whose
skull was smashed, with blood pouring from the back of his head.
At
another location in Cairo, a Reuters reporter was in a crowd of Mursi
supporters when he heard bullets whizzing past and hitting walls. The
crowd dived to the ground for cover. A man was killed by a bullet to
the head.
The
government insists people in the camp were armed. Television stations
controlled by the state or its sympathizers ran footage of what
appeared to be pro-Mursi protesters firing rifles at soldiers from
behind sandbag barricades.
Reuters
journalists and other Western media did not witness such incidents.
The crowds appeared to be armed mainly with sticks, stones and
concrete slabs against police and troops with rifles.
The
violence was the worst in Egypt since war with Israel in 1973 and
forces tough decisions upon Egypt's Western allies, especially
Washington, which funds Egypt's military with $1.5 billion a year and
has so far refused to label the army's overthrow of Mursi a "coup".
"The
United States strongly condemns the use of violence against
protesters in Egypt," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
"We extend our condolences to the families of those who have
been killed, and to the injured. We have repeatedly called on the
Egyptian military and security forces to show restraint."
"We
also strongly oppose a return to a State of Emergency law, and call
on the government to respect basic human rights such as freedom of
peaceful assembly, and due process under the law. The world is
watching what is happening in Cairo."
The
United States and Europe had pressed hard for Egypt's generals not to
crush the demonstrators. A diplomatic effort to open talks between
the Brotherhood and the authorities, backed by Washington, Brussels
and Arab states, collapsed last week.
CHURCHES
TORCHED
Outside
of Cairo, state media said Mursi supporters had besieged and set fire
to government buildings and attacked several churches. Christians,
who make up 10 percent of the population of 85 million, have feared
reprisals from Islamists since the Coptic Pope Tawadros endorsed the
military takeover.
Among
the dead in Cairo were at least two journalists. A Reuters
photographer was shot in the foot.
At
a makeshift morgue at the camp field hospital, a Reuters reporter
counted 29 bodies, with others still arriving. Most had died of
gunshot wounds to the head.
A
12-year-old boy, bare-chested with tracksuit trousers, lay out in the
corridor, a bullet wound through his neck. His mother was bent over
him, rocking back and forth and silently kissing his chest. One of
the nurses was sobbing on her hands and knees as she tried to mop up
the blood with a roll of tissue.
Adli
Mansour, the judge appointed president by the army when it overthrew
Egypt's first elected leader on July 3, announced a state of
emergency for one month and called on the armed forces to help police
enforce security. Rights activists said the move would give legal
cover for the army to make arrests.
Turkey
urged the U.N. Security Council and Arab League to act quickly to
stop a "massacre" in Egypt. Iran warned of the risk of
civil war. The European Union and several of its member countries
deplored the killings.
Mursi
became Egypt's first freely elected leader in June 2012, but failed
to tackle a deep economic malaise and worried many Egyptians with
apparent efforts to tighten Islamist rule.
Liberals
and young Egyptians staged huge rallies demanding that he resign, and
the army said it had removed him in response to the will of the
people. Since he was deposed, Gulf Arab states have pledged $12
billion in aid, buying the interim government valuable time to try to
put its finances back in order.
By
late afternoon, the campsite where Mursi's supporters had maintained
their vigil for six weeks was empty. One man stood alone in the
wreckage reciting the central tenet of Islam through a loudspeaker:
"There is no God but Allah."
He
wept, and then his voice broke off into silence.
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