CAIRO — Egyptian security forces moved to disperse two protests camps, killing more than a dozen people, according to some reports, and unleashing a day of violence and chaos across the capital Wednesday.
There were conflicting reports over the number of dead and injured.
A witness told Reuters news agency that 15 people were killed. The health ministry has not yet confirmed the death toll. The state news agency MENA reported that eight were killed and 82 injured as security moved in to clear out the camps.
Egypt's state TV said two police personnel were killed during the operation.
Forces fired tear gas and reports said they used live fire. Images showed clouds of black smoke billowing from the protest camp outside the Rabaa Al-Adawiya mosque in Cairo's Nasr City.
According to the Muslim Brotherhood's Gehad El-Haddad, at least 250 people were killed and 5,000 injured Wednesday morning, he said on Twitter. Those numbers have not been verified. In previous clashes, the Brotherhood has put the death toll higher than official figures.
The ambulance authority said five people were killed, with at least 52 wounded, local press reported.
Trains stopped operating and banks have closed, Al Jazeera reported, amid chaos that has ripped through Cairo since the morning.
The smaller of the two camps, at Nahda Square, has been cleared and is sealed off by security forces, according to witness reports.
Across town at the Rabaa Al-Awadiya camp, a protester said "snipers are everywhere."
"People are dying — women, children," said Hesham Al Ashry, a pro-Morsi protester who follows hardline Islamic ideology, speaking frantically from inside the sit-in.
He threatened that the United States could face consequences for the violence.
"They have to be clear as soon as possible that this is a military, bloody coup," he said amid sounds of gunfire. "If the United States does not take a clear stance, there will be no embassy here and no Americans anywhere in the Middle East. Tell them to wake up and say: This is a military coup."
The U.S. Embassy in Cairo closed its consular services starting at 1 p.m. local time.
At least 200 people have been arrested at the two camps, the interior ministry has said.
Supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi, from the Muslim Brotherhood, have maintained the two sit-ins for over a month despite threats by authorities that they will be dispersed by security forces. Protesters said they would not leave and demanded Morsi's reinstatement.
On Wednesday, Morsi's backers said protests will spread and continue.
"The people of Egypt will take to every square in Egypt — Cairo, Alexandria, Tanta, and in Upper Egypt," said Mohammed Attiya, a supporter of Morsi as he went to a protest in the Nile Delta. "They will be there until they end the coup."
On July 3, Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi overthrew Morsi, the nation's first freely elected leader, and ushered in a transition plan that suspended the constitution and dissolved the legislature.
"People elected Morsi and voted for the constitution and the parliament," said Abou Zeid Badr, 30, at the Nahda sit-in Tuesday night. "And these votes were crushed by the military."
"We want to save the future of Egypt," he said.
At least 130 people were killed in two separate clashes that erupted in July between Morsi supporters and security forces. Brotherhood leaders have been jailed and their assets frozen. Islamist television stations were shut down. And Morsi continues to be detained incommunicado.
Brotherhood leader Ashraf Abdel Ghaffar said the movement and its allies would not accept the coup under any condition.
"If we accept it we will be imprisoned, killed," Ghaffar said.
But the interim government is moving ahead with a transitional plan and working to draft a new constitution, and the political stalemate will not be resolved by authorities dispersing the pro-Morsi sit-ins, analysts said.
"The deep roots of the crisis need to be addressed and what we're seeing is the temporary manifestation of the anger of the Muslim Brotherhood," said political analyst Mazen Hassan, in Cairo. "It will be a mistake to think (authorities) can end this crisis by dispersing them."
Unlike sit-ins over the past two and a half years, since the uprising against Hosni Mubarak in 2011, authorities in early August called the pro-Morsi camps a threat to national security.
The sit-ins were also more fortified than any previous protest camps, likely making it more difficult for security to break them up and creating a landscape that could lead to more casualties, Hassan said. The Rabaa camp was protected by several sets of walls made from pavement stones and piles of sandbags, which also secured the perimeter of the Nahda sit-in.
Human rights groups had warned against forcefully dispersing the camps and foreign diplomats over the past few weeks flooded into the capital to help resolve the crisis. Authorities, however, said that international effort failed.
Over the past six weeks, the sit-ins grew into self-sufficient hamlets. Protesters created extensive security networks, with volunteers at Nahda Square checking identification cards, searching cameras and cars and seeking to weed out secret police. If suspects were caught, they were forced to give testimony and a copy of their ID, Ghaffar said.
Demonstrators stayed in tents made from wooden frames, drew electricity from lampposts, built restrooms, established a garbage collection network and hosted organized activities including soccer games at the Rabaa sit-in. Meals were distributed and makeshift hospitals were established.
"People gave us money — donations — or medicine, and we also bought supplies," said Mohammed Ads, a medical student who volunteered at an emergency hospital stablished Tuesday in Rabaa Al-Adawiya in anticipation of the looming need to treat the wounded.
There were conflicting reports over the number of dead and injured.
A witness told Reuters news agency that 15 people were killed. The health ministry has not yet confirmed the death toll. The state news agency MENA reported that eight were killed and 82 injured as security moved in to clear out the camps.
Egypt's state TV said two police personnel were killed during the operation.
Forces fired tear gas and reports said they used live fire. Images showed clouds of black smoke billowing from the protest camp outside the Rabaa Al-Adawiya mosque in Cairo's Nasr City.
According to the Muslim Brotherhood's Gehad El-Haddad, at least 250 people were killed and 5,000 injured Wednesday morning, he said on Twitter. Those numbers have not been verified. In previous clashes, the Brotherhood has put the death toll higher than official figures.
The ambulance authority said five people were killed, with at least 52 wounded, local press reported.
Trains stopped operating and banks have closed, Al Jazeera reported, amid chaos that has ripped through Cairo since the morning.
The smaller of the two camps, at Nahda Square, has been cleared and is sealed off by security forces, according to witness reports.
Across town at the Rabaa Al-Awadiya camp, a protester said "snipers are everywhere."
"People are dying — women, children," said Hesham Al Ashry, a pro-Morsi protester who follows hardline Islamic ideology, speaking frantically from inside the sit-in.
He threatened that the United States could face consequences for the violence.
"They have to be clear as soon as possible that this is a military, bloody coup," he said amid sounds of gunfire. "If the United States does not take a clear stance, there will be no embassy here and no Americans anywhere in the Middle East. Tell them to wake up and say: This is a military coup."
The U.S. Embassy in Cairo closed its consular services starting at 1 p.m. local time.
At least 200 people have been arrested at the two camps, the interior ministry has said.
Supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi, from the Muslim Brotherhood, have maintained the two sit-ins for over a month despite threats by authorities that they will be dispersed by security forces. Protesters said they would not leave and demanded Morsi's reinstatement.
On Wednesday, Morsi's backers said protests will spread and continue.
"The people of Egypt will take to every square in Egypt — Cairo, Alexandria, Tanta, and in Upper Egypt," said Mohammed Attiya, a supporter of Morsi as he went to a protest in the Nile Delta. "They will be there until they end the coup."
On July 3, Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi overthrew Morsi, the nation's first freely elected leader, and ushered in a transition plan that suspended the constitution and dissolved the legislature.
"People elected Morsi and voted for the constitution and the parliament," said Abou Zeid Badr, 30, at the Nahda sit-in Tuesday night. "And these votes were crushed by the military."
"We want to save the future of Egypt," he said.
At least 130 people were killed in two separate clashes that erupted in July between Morsi supporters and security forces. Brotherhood leaders have been jailed and their assets frozen. Islamist television stations were shut down. And Morsi continues to be detained incommunicado.
Brotherhood leader Ashraf Abdel Ghaffar said the movement and its allies would not accept the coup under any condition.
"If we accept it we will be imprisoned, killed," Ghaffar said.
But the interim government is moving ahead with a transitional plan and working to draft a new constitution, and the political stalemate will not be resolved by authorities dispersing the pro-Morsi sit-ins, analysts said.
"The deep roots of the crisis need to be addressed and what we're seeing is the temporary manifestation of the anger of the Muslim Brotherhood," said political analyst Mazen Hassan, in Cairo. "It will be a mistake to think (authorities) can end this crisis by dispersing them."
Unlike sit-ins over the past two and a half years, since the uprising against Hosni Mubarak in 2011, authorities in early August called the pro-Morsi camps a threat to national security.
The sit-ins were also more fortified than any previous protest camps, likely making it more difficult for security to break them up and creating a landscape that could lead to more casualties, Hassan said. The Rabaa camp was protected by several sets of walls made from pavement stones and piles of sandbags, which also secured the perimeter of the Nahda sit-in.
Human rights groups had warned against forcefully dispersing the camps and foreign diplomats over the past few weeks flooded into the capital to help resolve the crisis. Authorities, however, said that international effort failed.
Over the past six weeks, the sit-ins grew into self-sufficient hamlets. Protesters created extensive security networks, with volunteers at Nahda Square checking identification cards, searching cameras and cars and seeking to weed out secret police. If suspects were caught, they were forced to give testimony and a copy of their ID, Ghaffar said.
Demonstrators stayed in tents made from wooden frames, drew electricity from lampposts, built restrooms, established a garbage collection network and hosted organized activities including soccer games at the Rabaa sit-in. Meals were distributed and makeshift hospitals were established.
"People gave us money — donations — or medicine, and we also bought supplies," said Mohammed Ads, a medical student who volunteered at an emergency hospital stablished Tuesday in Rabaa Al-Adawiya in anticipation of the looming need to treat the wounded.