An Egyptian Health Ministry spokesman has raised the death toll to 525 and the number wounded to 3,717 in the previous day's clashes between police and supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi, and funerals are already underway following the violence that prompted the government to declare a nationwide, month-long state of emergency.
Wednesday's violence began when police moved to clear two sit-in camps in Cairo by supporters of Mohammed Morsi, ousted in a military coup on July 3. The clashes there later spread to elsewhere in Cairo and a string of other cities.
Khaled el-Khateeb, the ministry spokesman, said 202 of the dead were killed in the larger of the two camps, in Cairo's eastern Nasr City district.
Egypt's rapidly deteriorating situation prompted U.S. President Barack Obama to interrupt his week-long vacation in Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts to address the spiralling violence Thursday morning, in a speech expected to start mid-morning.
Administration officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, have condemned the clashes between Egypt's military-backed interim government and supporters of Morsi. But the U.S. has so far avoided any shifts in policy toward Egypt. Officials are not calling Morsi's ouster a coup. Taking that step would require the U.S. to cut off $1.3 billion in annual military aid to Egypt.
However, officials are considering cancelling joint U.S.-Egypt military exercises scheduled for next month. The Bright Star exercise has been a centrepiece of the countries' military relations for decades.
Kimberly Adams, reporting for CBC in Egypt, said the mood is "very sombre, very grim," and worried that the death toll will continue to rise.
"Most people looking at what's going on today and are concerned that there's going to be more violence and more pushback from the military," Adams said. "Unfortunately, neither side looks like they're backing down."
'My generation has lived under military rule for most of our lives.... If it means that we continue fighting until we reverse this military coup and restore our democracy, as inexperienced as it was, I will continue doing so, even if we have to face the live bullets of the army once again.'—Gehad El-Hadad, Muslim Brotherhood spokesman
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said on Thursday it plans to hold a march in Cairo later that day, according to Reuters.
"Marches are planned this afternoon from Al-Iman mosque to protest the deaths," the Islamist group said in a statement.
Near the site of one of the smashed encampments, in the eastern Nasr City district, dozens of blood- soaked bodies were stored inside a mosque. The bodies were wrapped in sheets and still unclaimed by families. Relatives at the scene were uncovering the faces in an attempt to identify their loved ones. Many complained that authorities were preventing them from obtaining permits to bury their dead.
Gehad El-Hadad of the Muslim Brotherhood, speaking via Skype to CBC's Heather Hiscox on Thursday morning, said it was "a mourning day.
"Today is the second day after the ... shame of yesterday where all these lives have been lost, many of them inside Cairo," he said.
El-Hadad said funerals will be held Thursday afternoon for many of the dead before the bodies are taken to the families' burial grounds.
When asked how far the Muslim Brotherhood is willing to let the situation in Egypt escalate, El-Hadad responded:
"My generation has lived under military rule for most of our lives.... If it means that we continue fighting until we reverse this military coup and restore our democracy, as inexperienced as it was, I will continue doing so, even if we have to face the live bullets of the army once again."
Grim scene inside mosque
Sharif Abdel Kouddous, an Egyptian-American journalist based in Cairo who reports for Democracy Now, told CBC News that he witnessed the grim scene inside the mosque.
"People are bringing ice in to try to keep the bodies from decomposing," he said. "The smell of death is heavy. People are spraying air fresheners there, and there is a state of shock. At least 10 of the bodies that I saw were charred, burned beyond recognition."
Victims' names were scribbled on white sheets covering their bodies, some of which were charred. Posters of Morsi were scattered on the floor.
"They accuse us of setting fire to ourselves. Then, they accuse us of torturing people and dumping their bodies. Now, they kill us and then blame us," screamed a woman in a head-to-toe black niqab.
Omar Houzien, a volunteer helping families search for their loved ones, said the bodies were brought in from the Medical Center at the sit-in camp site in the final hours of Wednesday's police sweep because of fears that they would be burned.
A list plastered on the wall listed 265 names of those said to have been killed in Wednesday's violence at the sit-in. Funerals for identified victims were expected to take place later on Thursday.
Mass police funeral held
Meanwhile, a mass police funeral — with caskets draped in the white, red and black Egyptian flag — was held in Cairo for some of the 43 security troops killed in Wednesday's clashes.
Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, who is in charge of the police, led the mourners. A police band played funerary music as a sombre funeral procession moved with the coffins placed atop red fire engines.
As well, on Thursday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the United Nations Security Council to meet urgently to discuss the situation in Egypt, accusing the West of ignoring the bloodshed.
In a televised statement before departing for a visit to Turkmenistan, Erdogan also said Egypt's leaders should stand a "fair and transparent" trial for what he called a "massacre" that unfolded live on televisions as police smashed two protest camps of supporters of the deposed Islamist president.
Map: Cairo hotspots
Hover over the red dots to learn more about each area. (Google/CBC)
He again called for the release from custody of Morsi and other members of his government, and said Egypt's current leaders should follow the example of Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, who resigned as Egypt's interim vice-president in protest of the violence.
Morsi has been held at an undisclosed location on allegations of murder and spying. Other Brotherhood leaders have been charged with inciting violence or conspiring in the killing of protesters.
Egyptian judicial authorities have extended Morsi's detention period for 30 days, Reuters reports, quoting the state news agency.
Erdogan, who leads an Islamic-based party, had strongly backed Morsi as an example for the Arab world of a democratically elected, pro-Islamic leader. He has frequently accused the West for tacitly supporting Morsi's ouster and failing to call the July 3 military intervention that deposed him "a coup."
ElBaradei's resignation comes as a blow to the new leadership's credibility with the pro-reform movement.
Interim Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi said Wednesday, 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 supporters of Morsi, saying they were given ample warnings to leave and he had tried foreign mediation efforts.
The leaders of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood called it a "massacre." Several of them were detained as police swept through the two sit-in sites, scores of other Islamists were taken into custody, and the future of the once-banned movement was uncertain.
Street battles
Backed by helicopters, police fired tear gas and used armoured bulldozers to plow into the barricades at the two protest camps in different sections of Cairo where the Morsi supporters had been camped since before he was ousted by the military July 3.
Egyptians mourn over the bodies of their relatives in a mosque at Nasr City, Cairo, on Thursday. (Khalil Hamra/Associated Press)
The smaller camp — near Cairo University in Giza — was cleared of protesters relatively quickly, but it took about 12 hours for police to take control of the main sit-in site near the Rabaah al-Adawiya Mosque in Nasr City that has served as the epicentre of the pro-Morsi campaign and had drawn chanting throngs of men, women and children only days earlier.
After the police moved on the camps, street battles broke out in Cairo and other cities across Egypt. Government buildings and police stations were attacked, roads were blocked, and Christian churches were torched, Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said.
At one point, protesters trapped a police Humvee on an overpass near the Nasr City camp and pushed it off, according to images posted on social networking sites that showed an injured policeman on the ground below, near a pool of blood and the overturned vehicle.
Three journalists were among the dead:
- Mick Deane, 61, a cameraman for British broadcaster Sky News.
- Habiba Ahmed Abd Elaziz, 26, a reporter for the Gulf News, a state-backed newspaper in the United Arab Emirates.
- Ahmed Abdel Gawad, who wrote for Egypt's state-run newspaper Al Akhbar.
Deane and Elaziz were shot to death, their employers said, while the Egyptian Press Syndicate, a journalists' union, said it had no information on how Gawad was killed.
For much of the afternoon, thousands of Morsi supporters chanting "God is great!" tried to join those besieged by the security forces inside the Nasr City camp. They were driven away when police fired tear gas.
Smoke clogged the sky above Cairo and fires smouldered on the streets, which were lined with charred poles and tarps after several tents were burned.
Trains disrupted
The Great Pyramids just west of Cairo were closed to visitors for the day together with the Egyptian Museum in the heart of the city. The central bank instructed commercial banks to close branches in areas affected by the chaos.
"Egypt has never witnessed such genocide," Brotherhood spokesman Ahmed Aref told The Associated Press from the larger of the two protest camps before it was cleared.
The pro-Morsi Anti-Coup Alliance alleged security forces used live ammunition, 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 the camp.
Security officials said train services between northern and southern Egypt were suspended to prevent Morsi supporters from travelling to Cairo. Clashes erupted on two roads in the capital's upscale Mohandiseen district when Morsi supporters opened fire on passing cars and pedestrians. Police used tear gas to chase them away.
The security officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media.
As well as the state of emergency, the government imposed a nighttime curfew on Cairo, Alexandria on the Mediterranean and 12 other provinces where violence broke out following the simultaneous raids.
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