Egypt death toll rises to 421 after violent crackdown on pro-Morsi camps

Published August 15, 2013

FoxNews.com

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood called on supporters to march in protest in Cairo on Thursday following the bloodiest day since the overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi by the country's military. 

Egypt's Health Ministry said Thursday morning that 421 people were killed in violence on Wednesday throughout the country, while 3,572 were wounded. The Muslim Brotherhood said it would hold an afternoon march in Cairo to protest the deaths, Reuters reported.

The casualties were mostly in Cairo where police in riot gear bulldozed two protest camps that had been the flashpoint of growing unrest. Sky News cameraman Mick Deane and Gulf News reporter Habiba Ahmed Abd Elaziz were among the dead, which included 43 policemen.

The violence prompted Interim President Adly Mansour to declare a month-long state of emergency and impose a 7 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew on Cairo, Alexandria, and 12 other provinces, ordering the armed forces to support the police in efforts to restore law and order and protect state facilities.

Interim Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi said in a televised address to the nation that it was a "difficult day" and that he regretted the bloodshed but offered no apologies for moving against the protesters, saying they were given ample warnings to leave and he had tried foreign mediation efforts. El-Beblawi added that the government could not indefinitely tolerate a challenge to authority that the 6-week-old protests represented.

"We want to see a civilian state in Egypt, not a military state and not a religious state," he said.

Despite the curfew, sporadic clashes continued in Cairo through the evening.

In the city of Assiut, south of Cairo, a police station was hit by two mortar shells Wednesday night fired by suspected Morsi supporters, according to officers there who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

As the fighting intensified Wednesday, Mohamed ElBaradei, abruptly resigned as Egypt's interim vice president. In a letter sent to Mansour, ElBaradei cited "decisions I do not agree with" regarding the government's crackdown.

"It has become difficult for me to continue bearing responsibility for decisions that I do not agree with and whose consequences I fear," ElBaradei wrote. "I cannot bear the responsibility for one drop of blood.''

The National Salvation Front, the main opposition grouping that he headed during Morsi's year in office, said it regretted his departure and complained that it was not consulted beforehand. Tamarod, the youth group behind the mass anti-Morsi protests that preceded the coup, said ElBaradei was dodging his responsibility at a time when his services were needed.

Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, the powerful head of Al-Azhar mosque, Sunni Islam's main seat of learning, also sought to distance himself from the violence. He said in a statement he had no prior knowledge of the action.

On Thursday, Reuters reported that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had called for the United Nations Security Council to convene quickly to discuss the crisis. 

Speaking at a press conference in Turkey's capital, Ankara, Erdogan said "Those who remain silent in the face of this massacre are as guilty as those who carried it out."

On Wednesday, the White House and several European leaders criticized the crackdown.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest, speaking at Martha's Vineyard, Mass., where President Obama is vacationing, said the world is watching what is happening in Egypt and it is "time for them to get back on a path of respecting the basic rights of their people."

Secretary of State John Kerry says the violence in Egypt is deplorable and is a serious blow to reconciliation efforts. He says it runs counter to Egyptians' aspirations for peace.

Kerry says Egypt's interim leaders must take a step back and calm the situation to avoid further deaths. He also says the U.S. strongly opposes a return to a state of emergency law and that should end as soon as possible.

Kerry says he spoke with Egypt's foreign minister and believes the path to a resolution is still open.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged all Egyptians to focus on reconciliation, while European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said dialogue should be encouraged through "peaceful protest, protecting all citizens and enabling full political participation."

Army troops did not take part in the two Cairo operations, but provided security. Police and army helicopters hovered over both sites as plumes of smoke rose over the city skyline hours after the police launched the simultaneous actions shortly after 7 a.m. local time.

"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," Saleh Abdulaziz, a 39-year-old teacher, told Reuters."They continued to fire at protesters even when we begged them to stop."

A Reuters correspondent said pools of blood were everywhere, with dozens of people lying in the street after suffering bullet and birdshot wounds.

The smaller of the two camps was cleared of protesters by late morning, with most of them taking refuge in the nearby Orman botanical gardens, inside the sprawling campus of Cairo University and the zoo.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene said security forces were chasing the protesters inside the zoo. At one point, a dozen protesters, mostly men with beards wearing traditional Islamist garb, were seen handcuffed and sitting on a sidewalk under guard outside the university campus. The private ONTV network showed firearms and rounds of ammunition allegedly seized from protesters there.

Security forces later stormed the larger camp in the eastern Cairo district of Nasr City.

An Associated Press television video journalist there said he could hear the screams of women as a cloud of white smoke hung over the protest encampment. He said a bulldozer was removing mounds of sand bags and brick walls built earlier by the protesters as a defense line in their camp.

An alliance of pro-Morsi groups said the 17-year-old daughter of senior Muslim Brotherhood Mohammed el-Beltagy, Asmaa Mohammed el-Beltagy, was killed in the Nasr City raid. 

Islam Tawfiq, a Brotherhood member at the Nasr City sit-in, said that the camp's medical center was filled with dead bodies and that the injured included children.

"No one can leave and those who do are either arrested or beaten up," he told the Associated Press.

The pro-Morsi Anti-Coup Alliance claimed that security forces used live ammunition in the raid, but the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the police, said its forces only used tear gas and that they came under fire from protesters.

The Interior Ministry warned that forces would deal firmly with protesters who were acting "irresponsibly," suggesting that it would respond in kind if its men are fired upon. It said it would guarantee safe passage to all who want to leave the Nasr City site but would arrest those wanted for questioning by prosecutors.

Elsewhere in Cairo, police fired tear gas to disperse Morsi supporters who wanted to join the Nasr City camp after it came under attack. State TV also reported that a police captain had been abducted by pro-Morsi protesters in the area, but there was no official statement about that.

El-Beltagy called on the police and army troops to mutiny against their commanders and on Egyptians to take to the streets to show their disapproval of the raids.

"Oh, Egyptian people, your brothers are in the square ... Are you going to remain silent until the genocide is completed?" el-Beltagy said. 

Officials said Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Ahmed Aref, chief theologian Abdel-Rahman el-Bar and hard-line cleric Safwat Hegazy, who is close to the Brotherhood, were arrested on Wednesday. Egypt's interior minister said senior Brotherhood member Essam el-Erian and el-Beltagy have not been arrested yet, despite earlier reports quoting officials saying otherwise.

The Brotherhood has spent most of the 85 years since its creation as an outlawed group or enduring crackdowns by successive governments. The latest developments could provide authorities with the grounds to once again declare it an illegal group and consign it to the political wilderness.

Regional television networks were showing images of collapsed tents and burning tires at both sites, with ambulances on standby. They were also showing protesters being arrested and led away by black-clad policemen.

A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said a total of 200 protesters have been arrested from both sites.

Other clashes broke out between Morsi supporters and security forces in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, the Nile Delta provinces of Beheira, Sharqiya and Gharbiyah and in the oasis region of Fayoum southwest of Cairo.

In the town of Marsa Maturh, along Egypt's northwest coast, police fired tear gas to break up hundreds of stone-throwing protesters in front of the regional government's headquarters, Reuters reports.

Churches belonging to Egypt's minority Coptic Christians were torched in three southern provinces — Minya, Assiut and Sohag. In the city of Bani Suef south of Cairo, protesters set three police cars on fire. Farther south in the Islamist stronghold of Assiut, police used tear gas to disperse thousands of Morsi supporters gathered in the city center.

The Egyptian Central Bank instructed commercial banks to close branches in areas affected by the chaos, a sign of alarm that the violence could spiral out of control. 

An official who declined to be named told Reuters that the banks and the Egypt's stock exchange will remain closed on Thursday.

Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president, had just completed one year in office when he was toppled. He has largely been held incommunicado, but was visited by the European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and an African delegation. Ashton reported that he was well and had access to television and newspapers.

Several bids by the United States, the European Union and Gulf Arab states to reconcile the two sides in Egypt in an inclusive political process have failed, with the Brotherhood insisting that Morsi must first be freed along with several of the group's leaders who have been detained in connection with incitement of violence.

The trial of the Brotherhood's leader, Mohammed Badie, and his powerful deputy Khairat el-Shater on charges of conspiring to kill protesters is due to start later this month. Badie is on the run, but el-Shater is in detention. Four others are standing trial with them on the same charges.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/08/15/egyptian-security-forces-attempt-to-clear-pro-morsi-protests/#ixzz2c23PoR6z

Mat 24:6  Y oiréis de guerras y rumores de guerras; mirad que no os turbéis, porque es necesario que todo esto acontezca; pero aún no es el fin.
Mat 24:6  And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that you be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.