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Council members also called for national reconciliation and expressed regret at the loss of life. Argentine Ambassador Maria Cristina Perceval, the council president, expressed the views of the council members after an emergency meeting. It was not a formal statement and represented the lowest-level response by the U.N.'s most powerful body a reflection of the serious differences among the 15 council members on how to respond to the escalating crisis in Egypt.
Perceval spoke to reporters after the council was briefed by Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson on the turmoil in Egypt, sparked by the government's deadly crackdown on supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi. "Members first of all expressed their sympathy to the victims and regretted the loss of life. The view of council members is that it's important to end violence in Egypt, that the parties exercise maximum restraint. And there was a common desire on the need to stop violence and to advance national reconciliation," Perceval said.
Russia and China traditionally oppose Security Council involvement in the domestic affairs of a country, partly because of sensitivity over internal disputes in their own countries, including in Chechnya and Tibet. Diplomats said several council members pressed for adoption of a press statement that condemned the violence but China was opposed. In the end even softer language deploring the violence was dropped, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the consultations were private.
Britain, France and Australia had jointly requested the council meeting. Britain's deputy ambassador Philip Parham said the council needed "to be informed about a situation that is obviously of serious concern." Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had earlier accused the West of ignoring the violence and called on the Security Council to meet urgently to discuss the situation. At least 638 people were confirmed killed and nearly 4,000 wounded in the violence sparked when riot police backed by armored vehicles, snipers and bulldozers smashed two sit-ins in Cairo where Morsi's supporters had been camped out for six weeks to demand his reinstatement. It was the deadliest day by far since the 2011 popular uprising that overthrew autocratic ruler Hosni Mubarak and plunged the country into more than two years of instability.
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They are expected to take place two days after authorities broke up Muslim Brotherhood protest camps in Cairo with the loss of at least 638 lives. Mr Morsi's supporters plan to converge on central Ramses Square from city mosques after Friday prayers. A state of emergency is in force and police have been authorised to use live ammunition in self-defence. BBC journalists in Ramses Square describe the atmosphere as very tense and were advised by the crowd to leave as the area is too dangerous to stay.
The Muslim Brotherhood called on its supporters to gather in mosques for Friday prayers and then take to the streets of Cairo in a "march of anger". The group's leaders say they will hold protests under the slogan "the people want to topple the coup". Security in the capital is tight, with many armoured personnel carriers on the streets. Entrances to Tahrir Square, the focus of demonstrations that led to the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, were reported to have been blocked off by the army. State TV said the army was deploying to protect "important and vital facilities". Members of groups opposed to Mr Morsi - the National Salvation Front and Tamarod - are reported to have called for counter-demonstrations in response to the Muslim Brotherhood protests.
There have also been calls for people to protect their neighbourhoods and churches throughout the country. Egypt's Coptic Christian community has been targeted by some Islamists who accuse the Church of backing the army's overthrow of Mr Morsi last month. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an NGO, says 25 churches, along with private homes and businesses belonging to Copts and other Christian denominations, were attacked on Wednesday and Thursday. There are fears of renewed bloodshed after authorities said the police were authorised to use live ammunition to protect themselves and key state institutions from attack.
Reports say there were renewed attacks on security forces on Thursday, with at least seven soldiers and a policeman killed in the Sinai peninsula and another police officer killed in the central city of Assiut. US Republican Senator John McCain told BBC Newsnight that the ousting of President Morsi was a "coup" and President Obama should have cut off aid to Egypt as a result. The US has been careful not to use the word coup as under US law this would mean stopping aid. "I am confused that we would not enforce our own laws," he said. "That sends a message of tolerance of brutality, of ineffective American leadership to the Muslim world, that the United States of America at least condones this kind of behaviour, which we cannot."
'Maximum restraint'
World condemnation widened for the bloody crackdown Wednesday on Morsi's mostly Islamist supporters, including an angry response from President Barack Obama, who canceled joint U.S.-Egyptian military maneuvers. Violence spread Thursday, with government buildings set afire near the Pyramids, policemen gunned down and scores of Christian churches attacked. As turmoil engulfed the country, the Interior Ministry authorized the use of deadly force against protesters targeting police and state institutions.
The Muslim Brotherhood, trying to regroup after the assault on their encampments and the arrest of many of their leaders, called for a mass rally on Friday in a challenge to the government's declaration of a monthlong nationwide state of emergency and a dusk-to-dawn curfew. At least 638 people were confirmed killed and nearly 4,000 wounded in the violence sparked when riot police backed by armored vehicles and bulldozers smashed the two sit-ins in Cairo where Morsi's mainly Islamist supporters had been camped out for six weeks calling for his reinstatement. It was the deadliest day by far since the 2011 popular uprising that toppled autocratic ruler Hosni Mubarak and plunged the country into more than two years of instability.
Egyptians walk among the burned remains of the Rabaah al-Adawiya mosque, in the center of the largest protest camp of supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi, that was cleared by security forces, in the district of Nasr City, Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2013. The death toll keeps going up in Egypt after security forces swept through two sit-in sites yesterday, operated by supporters of former President Mohammed Morsi. An Egyptian Health Ministry spokesman now says over 400 people died in the violence that has prompted international criticism.
The Health Ministry said in a statement that 288 of those killed were in the largest protest camp in Cairo's Nasr City district, while 90 others were slain in a smaller encampment at al-Nahda Square, near Cairo University. Others died in clashes that broke out between Morsi's supporters and security forces elsewhere in the Egyptian capital and other cities. Mohammed Fathallah, the ministry spokesman, said earlier that the blood-soaked bodies lined up in the El Imam mosque in Nasr City were not included in the official death toll. It was not immediately clear if the new figures included the ones at the mosque.
Inside the mosque-turned-morgue, the names of the dead were scribbled on white sheets covering the bodies, many of them charred, and a list with 265 names was plastered on the wall. Heat made the stench from the corpses almost unbearable as the ice brought in to chill the bodies melted and household fans offered little relief. Over the mosque speakers, announcements urged people to leave because their body heat was making the humid conditions worse inside the mosque, where posters of Morsi were piled up in a corner. Many people complained that authorities were preventing them from obtaining permits to bury their dead, although the Muslim Brotherhood announced that several funerals had been held Thursday for victims who had been identified. Fathallah denied that permits were being withheld.
More Death toll from Egypt violence rises to 638 - Middle East - Stripes
Egypt has become increasingly polarized since the Islamists rose to power following the 2011 revolution that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Fault lines touching key and potentially explosive issues like identity, the rights of Christians and other minorities, and democratic values have never been greater. The Muslim Brotherhood and their hard-line allies stand at one end of a bitter standoff with secularists, liberals, moderate Muslims and Christians.
That schism grew after President Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected leader, was ousted in a July 3 military coup. But it was Wednesday's deadly police raids - with armored bulldozers and security forces plowing through two protest camps - that will be remembered as a turning point when what had been primarily a political standoff erupted into bloodshed. "The spark of civil war is out," wrote Islamist columnist and author Fahmy Howeidy in Thursday's edition of the independent al-Shorouk daily. "The nation is on the edge of an abyss." Adding to the mix is the branding by the state media of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood and allies as "terrorists" and growing calls for authorities to take a tougher approach on the Islamists.
In a glimpse of what may be in store for the most populous Arab state, dozens of revenge attacks and clashes spilled over into a second day Thursday in Cairo and other cities - showing the capability of Islamists to strike and laying bare the depth of their anger over Morsi's ouster and the crackdown that left hundreds dead. Angry young men attacked government and security buildings, setting some ablaze, cut off roads, damaged or torched dozens of churches and stormed more than 20 police stations.
In one particularly gruesome attack, four officers in a police station just outside Cairo were killed after the building was shelled with rocket-propelled grenades. The assailants then slit the police chief's throat, a brutality reminiscent of an Islamist, anti-government insurgency that raged in Egypt in the 1990s before Mubarak used force to suppress it, killing and jailing thousands of Islamists. In response, the government authorized police Thursday to use deadly force against anyone attacking security forces or government installations. While the international community largely condemned the overwhelming use of force to clear out the camps on Wednesday, the military-backed administration's fight against the Brotherhood so far has been supported by many Egyptians, who are mainly Muslim but object to hard-liners.
More Egypt enters uncharted territory - U.S. - Stripes
On Sunday morningthe first day of the workweek in EgyptCairo seemed to be returning to some semblance of normalcy. Cars jammed the roads that connect the outer neighborhoods to the center of the capital, but evidence of the past weeks bloodbath, which has killed more than 1,000 people since the military government cracked down on Muslim Brotherhood supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi, was everywhereburned out Central Security Forces vans and armored cash transport cars dotted the road from the airport. Smoke still rose from the Arab Contractors building close to Ramses Square, where a standoff between Morsi supporters and angry civilians and security services had come to a head two evenings before.
I had asked Michael, who I have worked with for years, to pick me up from the airport because of increasing attacks on Western journalists in Cairo. He took the scene in stride as we stalled and stopped in traffic, pointing out the remains of torched cars and anti-Brotherhood graffiti along our route. Not all of us are shooting each other, he told me when I asked if he was nervous about the situation. He was completely unfazed by the weeks carnage and said the Muslim Brotherhood had asked for it by continuing the sit-ins it had been holding since Morsi was removed in a coup on July 3. They are terrorists, he said, plain and simple.
Michael is a Coptic Christian. Copts make up roughly 10 percent of Egypts population of 85 million. While sporadic attacks on churches and Copts have become more frequent with the rise of political Islam, Michael has always claimed he wasnt afraid of sectarian attacks. Nor did he seem to care if all the Brotherhood supporters were expunged from Egypt. They are terrorists, he repeated, even though just a month earlier they were politicians, representing Egypt after winning free and fair elections.
I wasnt surprised to hear him defend the militarys bloodletting. In the past five years, the words civil war have never been closer to the tip of peoples tongues. Theres something deeply wrong here, and it isnt just the scenes of urban battles and morguesan unfortunately frequent sight in the Middle East. Today in Egypt, the sheer hatred and vilification of the other side has created two parallel worlds of victims.
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It looked more like a fortified military zone than a top tourist attraction that draws millions of visitors: Metal barricades, tan-colored tanks and men in army fatigues blocked the way to the Giza pyramids on Saturday. "This is the street of the pyramids?" asked Sabr Agaya, who offers camel and carriage rides, in a rhetorical tone. "I can't believe this is the street. Sometimes my head spins." Tourism in Egypt was devastated this week as museums and archaeological sites shut down and violence erupted, propelling looting and sinking the industry. "My business died," said Agaya, standing among a pack of men with no work and a throng of emaciated horses. "No one comes."
Violence clawed through the country this week, killing nearly 900 people since Wednesday, when security forces cleared two protest camps. "We cannot accept any reservations until next Saturday," said Mohammed Sabry, who works in the reservations department at the Cairo Four Seasons, "because as you know, there are bad circumstances around the hotel." Many reservations were canceled at the Mena House Hotel built in 1869 as a hunting lodge for Egyptian royalty at the foot of the pyramids said deputy hotel manager Ahmed Salem. He blamed the government-imposed nightly 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew and the fact "there is no clear idea about what will happen in the next few days."
Last week, two major German tour operators canceled all trips to Egypt after the nation's foreign ministry warned Europeans against visiting popular beach resorts. Other European countries followed suit and on Thursday, the U.S. State Department renewed a warning urging Americans to avoid traveling to the country. Security forces over the weekend protected the pyramids "not because the area is unsafe," Salem said. "It's a security measure: This is one of the most important places in Egypt." Looters ransacked the Malawi Antiquities Museum overnight Thursday in Upper Egypt's city of Minya. Glass display cases were smashed and hundreds of artifacts were reported stolen. Others were left destroyed on the floor.
Antiquities Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said Saturday that no other archaeological sites were exposed to attacks and that security measures at museums and historic sites nationwide were boosted, state news agency MENA reported. The fresh hit to the tourism industry began when millions rose up against former president Mohammed Morsi at the end of June. But the troubles date back even farther to the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak. Tourism is one of Egypt's largest industries, employing 2.83 million professionals, according to the Egyptian Tourism Federation, a non-governmental group. That doesn't include informal workers.
More Egypt tourism takes massive hit amid unrest
