Dozens of Morsi supporters \'killed in Cairo clashes\'

Egypt health ministry ambulances in Cairo on Saturday morning Cairo – Akram Ali, Al Deeb Abu Ali, Mohammed Al Dawi Dozens of Mohammed Morsi\'s supporters were shot dead in the Egyptian capital on Saturday as violence erupted following a night of massive rallies for and against the ousted Islamist president.
An AFP correspondent saw at least 37 bodies laid out at a makeshift mortuary in an Islamist-run field hospital in Cairo, with doctors saying all of them were killed by live rounds during the clashes.
Medics at the field hospital said a total of 75 people were killed, including bodies taken elsewhere. The health ministry said 20 people died.
Egypt’s Interior Ministry released a press statement denying security forces had turned their guns on protesters, saying firearms had not been used when it intervened to break up clashes between Morsi-supporters from the Rabaa el-Adaweya and residents on Nasr Road.
The statement added that security forces had used teargas to disperse demonstrators from Rabaa el-Adaweya after they attacked security personnel using stones and birdshots.
It said eight members of the security forces had been injured in the clashes.
The army ousted Morsi on July 3 after nationwide protests demanding his removal.
Tens of thousands of supporters from his Muslim Brotherhood movement have since been camped outside the mosque in the Nasr City district of Cairo, in a defiant bid to get him reinstated.
Doctors at the field hospital said at least 1000 were also wounded in clashes with police on the road to Cairo\'s international airport on Saturday morning.
The health ministry said 177 people were wounded.
A Brotherhood leader, Murad Ali, told AFP that police had fired live rounds, but the official MENA news agency cited a security official it did not identify as denying the police used any live bullets.
Running battles broke out at dawn on the airport road, with police firing tear gas at stone-throwing protesters, MENA said. Buckshot was fired, but it was unclear from which side.
The bloodshed came as the interim interior minister said the military-backed government would move swiftly to break up the Islamist protest camp in Nasr City.
\"There will be decisions from the prosecutor soon, and this situation will be ended,\" Mohammed Ibrahim told satellite television channel Al-Hayat.
Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who orchestrated the coup, had called for a mass show of support on Friday for a crackdown on \"terrorism\".
Hundreds of thousands of anti-Morsi protesters obliged and gathered in Cairo\'s Tahrir Square and around the Itihadiya presidential palace.
On Saturday morning, interim president Adly Mansour called on Morsi supporters demonstrating in Rabaa el-Adaweya Square to go home, promising they will not be arrested. He also praised Friday’s mass demonstrations, saying the Egyptian people had reached a level of great political awareness.
The veteran judge seemed satisfied that the mass rallies had confirmed the legitimacy of the interim government, calling on those who dismissed the July 3 ouster of Morsi as a coup to \"Look at the TV and foreign news agencies...These are Egyptians before you... Is this a coup or the will of the people?”
He also called on the institutions of the Egyptian state to meet the demands of the Egyptian people.
In an apparent reference to Muslim Brotherhood supporters, who strongly oppose the recent change of government, Mansour called for the inclusion of all Egyptians, saying if political opponents “want to enter into Egyptian society then I welcome them, and we will try to forget our differences and divisions”.
But he said that those who committed violations against the people would not be tolerated.
The interim leader condemned Egypt’s current state of insecurity and said the state would deal strictly with those working to harm the interests of the state.
Referring to militant attacks in the northern Sinai Peninsula, Mansour said: “God willing the Egyptian state will deal strongly with the terrorism in Sinai. They are surrounded.”
Egypt, the Arab world\'s most populous country of 84 million people, has been rocked by violence that has killed some 200 people since the coup.
The army has said there will be no reneging on a roadmap to fresh elections next year.
But the Brotherhood and allied Islamist groups have rejected the interim government and vowed to press their protests until Morsi is reinstated.
Western governments are watching the crisis in Egypt with growing unease, fearing the military may be angling for a prolonged power grab.
The United States has decided not to label the army\'s overthrow of Morsi a \"coup\", a move that would trigger an automatic freeze of some $1.5 billion (1.1 billion euros) in aid, a US official said.
Nevertheless Washington on Wednesday suspended the delivery of four promised F-16 fighter jets.
Egypt\'s military is also facing a low-level insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel. Militants killed a civilian and wounded five soldiers in attacks in the region on Friday.
Additional source: AFP