Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood holds protests, clash with police, opponents

CAIRO, EGYPT ( AP) — Clashes erupted Friday as thousands of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood around Egypt held protests marking the passage of 100 days since the start of a bloody crackdown against them in the wake of the ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. The violence left two dead including a 10-year-old boy.

The marches in multiple districts of Cairo and other cities were commemorating the Aug. 14 storming by security forces on two pro-Morsi protest camps in the capital that killed hundreds of Islamists.

In one of Friday’s marches, protesters attempted to enter Rabaah al- Adawiya Square, which was the site of the biggest sit-in camp, in an eastern neighbourhood of Cairo. Security forces, who had sealed off the square with barbed wire and armoured vehicles, drove the protesters off with volleys of tear gas. The biggest march in Cairo brought out several thousand protests, who tried to block a main road, then clashed with Morsi opponents in exchanges of stone-throwing. Police fired tear gas to disperse the protest.

A 10-year-old boy died when he was hit in the head by birdshot in clashes that broke out between Morsi supporters and opponents in the city of Suez, according to Ahmed el-Ansari, the head of Egypt’s emergency services. The boy was among a crowd of local residents who came out to fight with the Brotherhood protesters, a doctor in the Suez emergency unit told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists.