33 dead, 1,500 injured as Cairo street battles enter fourth day
Posted November 22, 2011 6:47 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Injured protesters continued to stream out of downtown Cairo on Tuesday as demonstrators faced off against security forces for the fourth straight day.
The clashes between protesters demanding an end to military rule have claimed at least 33 lives so far and over 1,500 have been injured.
Groups of mostly young protesters fought running battles with riot police outside of the Interior Ministry headquarters near Tahrir Square on Tuesday, hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails, with the police firing tear gas and buckshot.
Medical sources say that a large number of the dead were killed by live ammunition, which the army and police deny using.
A steady stream of injured were ferried from the front lines by motorcycle or on the backs of their fellow protesters to the numerous field hospitals that have been set up by volunteer doctors around Tahrir Square.
Egyptian activists have called for a huge turnout for protests on the afternoon, which aim to put an end to rule by the military which took over after former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February.
The ruling council late on Monday urged calm and called for crisis talks with political forces to find a way forward. The government of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf has resigned, but the military has so far not announced whether they will accept the resignation.
Security forces have also battled protesters elsewhere in Egypt.
Two people were killed in the port city of Ismailia when around 4,000 demonstrators took on security forces according to medical sources. Some 5,000 people surrounded a security headquarters in the northern coastal city of Alexandria and police responded by firing live ammunition, witnesses said.
Many of the protesters have directed their anger at the head of the armed forces, Field Marsha Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who was the Minister of Defence under Mubarak.
Medical sources at Cairo’s main morgue said 33 corpses had been received since Saturday, most with bullet wounds.
The Health Ministry put the toll at 24 dead and 1,250 wounded.
The violence casts a pall over the first round of Egypt’s parliamentary elections, which starts on Nov. 28 in Cairo and elsewhere. The army says the polls will go ahead, while some observers fear the safety of the ballot cannot now be guaranteed.
