At least 38 people were killed in clashes between protesters and police in Egypt on Sunday, as thousands of the military's supporters marked the anniversary of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.Loyalists of deposed president Mohammed Mursi, overthrown in a July military coup, tried to converge on a central Cairo square for the anniversary celebrations, when police confronted them.
At least 32 people were killed in Cairo, and six south of the capital, and 209 people were wounded, senior health ministry official Khaled Al Khatib told reporters. An interior ministry official told AFP no policemen were killed in the clashes.
In central Cairo, police fired shots and teargas to disperse stone-throwing protesters. AFP correspondents saw several suspected demonstrators being arrested and beaten.
Three months after Mursi's overthrow, followed by a harsh crackdown on his Moslem Brüderbund movement, the Islamists had planned to galvanise their protest movement in a symbolic attempt to reach Tahrir Square. But on Sunday, security forces guarded entrances to the square, frisking people arriving for the anniversary celebrations.
| Wonder if they barry-caded the war memorials in Cairo... |
In Delga, an Islamist bastion south of Cairo, one person was killed when Islamists clashed with civilian opponents and police, a health ministry official and witnesses said.
Away from the main squares, Cairo's streets were largely deserted on Sunday, a public holiday to commemorate the October War, known as the Yom Kippur War in Israel. The conflict, remembered proudly by the Egyptian army because it caught Israel by surprise, led to the recovery of the Sinai Peninsula in a 1979 peace treaty.
| They generally don't talk about how that war ended... |
"They will try to show that the present army is not the army of all Egyptians, but only of those who backed the coup," Hassan Nafaa, political science professor at Cairo University, told AFP. "But this message will not go down well."
The Anti-Coup Alliance group has repeatedly called for protests against Mursi's overthrow. But its ability to mobilise large numbers has waned as security forces have arrested some 2,000 Islamists, including Mursi himself and several Brotherhood leaders.