Cairo: At least 24 people have been killed and more than 25 others injured in the fresh riots between Christian protesters and security forces in Cairo.
The riots erupted in the Egyptians capital when Coptic Christians protesting against the recent destruction of a church came under attack.
The Copts were demonstrating outside the state television building in central Cairo on Sunday when they clashed with locals, according to Egyptian state television.
Military vehicles were set on fire and thick black smoke rose along the Nile outside the state television building, the state-run station reported.
During the protest, led by several Coptic bishops, the demonstrators burnt photos of Mustafa al-Sayed, the governor of Aswan.
The Coptic church in Merinab village was attacked after al-Seyyed was reported as saying Copts had built it without the required planning permission, according to state television.
Al Jazeera’s Rawya Rageh, reporting from Cairo, said “utter chaos” prevailed in the centre of the capital.
Rageh said: “It was supposed to be a peaceful protest, demanding that Coptic rights should be fulfilled. But it soon escalated into violence, with people on balconies pelting the demonstrators with stones, clearly disagreeing with the cause of the Coptic demonstrators.”
The protesters demanded the governor be sacked and the church rebuilt.
Christians account for an estimated 10 percent of Egypt’s population of 80 million. Tensions are not uncommon between Copts and the country’s majority Muslims.
In March, 13 people were killed in sectarian clashes around the Cairo neighbourhood of Manshiyet Nasser, shortly after a church was torched in the village of Sol, south of the capital.
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