At least 525 people were killed in Egypt on Wednesday, including 202 protesters in a Cairo Islamist sit-in, a health ministry official told AFP.
The death toll included 43 policemen who died in violence across the country and 202 protesters killed in the Rabaa al-Adawiya protest camp, senior health ministry official Khaled al-Khatib said on Thursday.
"Eighty-seven also died in Giza and the rest elsewhere across the country," Khatib said. Giza is the Cairo district where police broke up another Islamist sit-in on Wednesday.
The policemen died in clashes with the protesters in Cairo and in attacks on police stations across the country.
The death toll was initially reported to be much lower.
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood called for a march in Cairo on Thursday, a day after bloody crackdown on its supporters who occupied protest camps demanding the reinstatement of president Mohamed Morsi.
The Brotherhood said the planned march would set off from the Al-Iman mosque in the capital "to protest the death of their relatives".
Riot police backed by armoured vehicles, bulldozers and helicopters on Wednesday swept away two encampments of supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi, setting off running street battles in Cairo and other Egyptian cities. At least 525 people were killed nationwide, many of them in the crackdown on the protest sites.
Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and pro-reform leader in the interim government, resigned in protest over the assaults as the military-backed leadership imposed a monthlong state of emergency and nighttime curfew.
Clashes broke out elsewhere in the capital and other provinces as Islamist anger spread over the dispersal of the 6-week-old sit-ins by Morsi’s Islamist supporters that divided Egypt.
It was the highest single day death toll since the 18-day uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
The Health Ministry said 525 civilians were killed and more than 3,000 injured, while Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said 43 policemen died in the assault. He said Morsi supporters attacked 21 police stations and seven Coptic Christian churches across the nation, and assaulted the Finance Ministry in Cairo, occupying its ground floor.
The assault to take control of the two sit-in sites came after days of warnings by the interim administration that replaced Morsi after he was ousted in a July 3 coup. The camps on opposite sides of the capital began in late June to show support for Morsi. Protesters – many from Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood – have demanded his reinstatement.
The smaller camp was cleared relatively quickly, but it took hours for police to take control of the main sit-in site, which is near the Rabbah al-Adawiya Mosque that has served as the epicentre of the pro-Morsi campaign.
Several senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood who were wanted by police were detained after police stormed the camp near the mosque, according to security officials and state television. Among those seized were Brotherhood leaders Mohammed el-Beltagy and Essam el-Erian, and hard-line cleric Safwat Hegazy – all wanted by prosecutors to answer allegations of inciting violence and conspiring to kill anti-Morsi protesters.
In imposing the state of emergency, the government ordered the armed forces to support the police in restoring law and order and protect state facilities. The nighttime curfew affects Cairo and 10 provinces.
The turmoil was the latest chapter in a bitter standoff between Morsi’s supporters and the interim leadership that took over the Arab world’s most populous country. The military ousted Morsi after millions of Egyptians massed in the streets at the end of June to call for him to step down, accusing him of giving the Brotherhood undue influence and failing to implement vital reforms or bolster the ailing economy.
The coup provoked similar protests by Morsi’s backers after he and other Brotherhood leaders were detained as divisions have deepened, dealing a major blow to hopes of an end to the turmoil that followed the 2011 revolution against Mubarak.
ElBaradei, a former head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, was named only last month as interim President Adly Mansour’s deputy for foreign relations.
In his resignation letter, he wrote that he is not prepared to be held responsible for a “single drop of blood,” and that only more violence will result, according to a copy that was emailed to The Associated Press. He said Egypt is more polarised than when he took office.
The pro-Morsi Anti-Coup alliance claimed 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.
Army troops did not take part in the two operations, but provided security at the locations.
An alliance of pro-Morsi groups said Asmaa Mohammed el-Batagy, the 17-year-old daughter of the senior Brotherhood figure who was detained by police, was shot and killed. Her brother, Ammar, confirmed her death on his Twitter account.
Two journalists were among the dead – Mick Deane, 61, a cameraman for British broadcaster Sky News, and Habiba Ahmed Abd Elaziz, 26, a reporter for the Gulf News, a state-backed newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, the news organisations reported. Both had been reported to be shot.
A security official said 200 protesters were arrested at both sites. Several men could be seen walking with their hands up as they were led away by black-clad police.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm claimed that more than 500 protesters were killed and some 9,000 wounded in the two camps, but those figures could not be confirmed and nothing in the video from AP or local TV networks suggested such a high death toll.
At least 250 people have died in previous clashes since the coup.
