Five men died in Cairo in separate incidents involving a bomb blast and protester clashes with security forces on Thursday, the first anniversary of the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, security sources said.
Thousands of Egyptians opposed to the army’s ouster of Mursi last year joined rare protests in cities and towns around the country, witnesses said. Previous protests had much lower turnout after a new law required official approval.
Security was tight in Cairo as armoured personnel carriers blocked off the city’s central Tahrir Square to head off any possible protests there.
Since Mursi’s ouster, his Muslim Brotherhood group was labelled a terrorist organisation and thousands of Islamists have been jailed on accusations of terrorism and violence while militant Islamists have stepped up attacks on security forces.
“On July 3, Egyptians will revolt, marking the beginning of the end of the coup, marching from all towns and cities across Egypt to liberty squares in all provinces,” an alliance of Mursi’s supporters said in a statement late on Wednesday.
Three of Thursday’s victims died in clashes that broke out in Cairo between protesters and security forces, security sources said. Unrest was reported both from the upscale district of Mohandiseen and poor areas such as Haram and Materiya
Earlier in the day, two men were killed in a bomb blast in a flat in Kerdasa, a western district of the capital where around 10 policemen were killed in an Islamist mob attack last summer. Security sources said they believed one of the victims was involved in that police killing.
