Thirty-six Islamist prisoners were killed yesterday during an attempted jailbreak, bringing to almost 800 the toll in five days of violence since Egypt moved to crush supporters of ousted president Mohammed Mursi.
\nThe violence comes amid a relentless security crackdown on Mursi\u2019s Muslim Brotherhood movement that includes the arrest of top Islamist leaders.
\nIt has drawn widespread international condemnation, with senior European Union diplomats set to hold emergency talks today to discuss the situation and future EU action.
\nThe Egyptian interior ministry said the prisoners had taken an officer hostage and died after suffocating on tear gas.
\n\u201cThirty-six of the prisoners died of suffocation and crowding after tear gas was used to stop their escape,\u201d the ministry said.
\nThe killings are the latest in five days of bloodshed sparked by a bloody police and military operation to clear Islamists from protest camps in Cairo.
\nIn his first remarks since the campaign was launched, military chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who overthrew Mursi on July 3, warned security forces would confront any further violence from protesters.
\n\u201cWe will never be silent in the face of the destruction of the country,\u201d Sisi told top military and police commanders.
\n\u201cWe are very prepared for this,\u201d he said, pledging a \u201cforceful\u201d response to further attacks on police stations and government buildings.
\nThe army and police have sent reinforcements to the Abu Zaabal prison, the scene of yesterday\u2019s deadly jailbreak attempt, the official MENA news agency reported.
\nThe pro-Mursi Anti-Coup Alliance, which has been pressing for the Islamist leader\u2019s reinstatement since the army toppled him in a popularly backed coup, accused police of killing 52 prisoners.
\n\u201cThe killing of 52 of anti-coup detainees emphasises the systematic violence practised against opponents of the coup, and emphasises the killing operations in cold blood they face,\u201d the group said in a statement in English.
\n\u201cThey were reportedly assassinated in their truck with live ammunition and tear gas fired from windows,\u201d said the Brotherhood-led group.
\nThe Islamists said they cancelled \u201cseveral marches\u201d yesterday, citing fears of vigilantes and snipers, but that others would go ahead.
\nAt a mosque in the Dokki neighbourhood of Cairo, where one march was scheduled to begin, residents stood guard.
\n\u201cWe are waiting for them. I swear we will kill them if they approach the mosque,\u201d one said.
\nIn the evening, the interior ministry announced a ban on vigilantes who have formed self-styled \u201cpopular committees\u201d and urged citizens to respect a nightly curfew.
\nThe announcement came as hundreds of protesters briefly marched in the Suez canal city of Ismailiya, a correspondent said.
\nTwo policemen were later killed in a shooting attack near the city, the interior ministry said.
\nThe rallies had been expected to be a test of the strength of Mursi\u2019s loyalists in the wake of the crackdown.
\nLast morning, the capital showed signs of returning to normal, with traffic beginning to flow again and banks and shops reopening for the first time since Wednesday.
\nViolence has continued to plague the Sinai Peninsula, where a civilian, two soldiers and a policeman were killed overnight on Saturday, security sources said.
\nThe European Union said yesterday it would review ties with Egypt\u2019s army and government unless the bloodshed ends.
\n\u201cThe EU will urgently review in the coming days its relations with Egypt,\u201d EU leaders Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso said.<\/p>\n
Source: AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thirty-six Islamist prisoners were killed yesterday during an attempted jailbreak, bringing to almost 800 the toll in five days of violence since Egypt moved to crush supporters of ousted president Mohammed Mursi.
\nThe violence comes amid a relentless security crackdown on Mursi\u2019s Muslim Brotherhood movement that includes the arrest of top Islamist leaders.
\nIt has drawn widespread international condemnation, with senior European Union diplomats set to hold emergency talks today to discuss the situation and future EU action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":9000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}