At least 120 people have been killed and several thousand others wounded today as Egyptian police attacked another sit-in protest in northeast Cairo. The protesters, who were near a mosque, were opposing this month’s military coup and calling for a return of the civilian government.
The junta Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim confirmed the shootings but dramatically under-reported the death toll, claiming only 21 had been killed, local health officials confirmed the number was much, much higher.
Exact figures are difficult to come by on casualties with the junta overtly lying, but the death toll reports consistently hover around 120 and the wounded has been estimated at 4,500 by the Muslim Brotherhood, which organized the rallies.
Interior Minister Ibrahim praised the shootings and said “God willing” the rest of the protesters would be dealt with in a similar way, citing complaints from residents unhappy with large public protests against military rule.
This is the second massacre of sit-in protesters since the coup, as a July 8 attack on another sit in left 53 people dead and 435 others wounded, according to the junta’s own figures. The junta followed up that massacre by ordering the arrests of the organizers for “incitement” and is now consistently calling public protesters “terrorists.”
