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resurfaced in Cairo and a new government met for the first time yesterday, discussing how to re-store law and order.
The Health Ministry said the 13 people were killed and 140 wou-nded in violence on Tuesday night ignited by tensions built up since an arson attack on a church south of Cairo on Saturday.
The strife poses another challenge to the ruling Supreme Coun-cil of the Armed Forces as it charts Egypt’s course towards elections that will return power to a civilian, elected government within six months.
The revolution that swept President Hosni Mubarak from power on February 11 was characterised by Christian-Muslim solidarity.
Egyptians hoped the uprising had buried tensions that have flared up with increasing regularity in recent years.
It was not clear how many of the dead were Christian or Mus-lim. The trouble had started on a Cairo highway where Christians had been protesting over the arson attack on the church south of the capital in Helwan.
The protests spread elsewhere in the capital and hundreds of people faced off in the violence, hurling petrol bombs and rocks, witnesses said.
The injuries included head wounds, bruises, bullet wounds and broken limbs, the state news agency quoted a senior health ministry official as saying. At least one of the dead, an 18-year-old Christian, had been shot in the back.
It was not clear who had opened fire. The military, trying to restore order, had opened fire in the air at one point.
“All of us must pay heed to this,” said Amr Hamzawy, a researcher at the Carnegie Middle East Center and a member of the reform movement.
“The supreme military council, the government and civil society must react because we do not want this to escalate and I fear we may return to the dark tunnel of sectarian tension.” – Reuters.