Gunfire reported from and toward Al-Fath Mosque minaret

Friday’s violent events spilled over to the early hours of Saturday, especially in the Ramses area of Cairo, which had witnessed intense clashes during the day between Muslim Brotherhood supporters, police and residents. 

Many Brotherhood marches had converged on Ramses Square on Friday, protesting the forcible dispersal on August 14 of their sit-ins demanding the reinstatement of deposed President Mohamed Morsi. There, violence unfolded as groups of protesters attempted to storm the nearby Azbakeya Police Station and clashed with police and local residents. 

Inside Al-Fath Mosque, turned a makeshift hospital and morgue, Mada Masr's reporters counted as many as 45 corpses by Friday afternoon. In the early hours of Saturday, the police attempted to evacuate the mosque, which was slowly starting to turn into a Muslim Brotherhood sit-in, according to several privately-owned media channels. According to the state-run Middle East News Agency, the police cleared an exit for Morsi’s supporters to leave the mosque after they were searched. 

However, the website of the Freedom and Justice Party, affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, maintained that protesters remained inside the mosque as of late Saturday morning. Hani Nowara, a Brotherhood member trapped inside, told the portal that there are negotiations to release some people through a back gate of the mosque. He called people to come around the mosque and end the siege of “the Interior Ministry militias.”

Reporters on the ground in the late morning of Saturday say the mosque is completely surrounded by Central Security Forces and that people clinging to the windows of the mosque suggest they are trapped inside. However, later, images of people leaving the mosque from one entrance amid chants of “silmaya, silmaya” (peaceful) began to emerge. Mada Masr saw the army shooting gunfire in the air, presumably to disperse protesters and onlookers particularly as people were exiting the mosque. 

In the afternoon of Saturday, several reporters confirmed gunfire being shot from the mosque’s minaret, although it was not clear who was behind the shooting. Meanwhile, a video by journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous also confirms that there was shooting at the mosque’s minaret in what seemed to be an exchange of fire. 

Earlier, protesters reportedly used fire extinguishers to fill the mosque with smoke in an attempt to prevent the police from entering the mosque, as shown on a number of satellite television channels showed. From within the mosque, Brotherhood leader Saad Emara pleaded to the world to save those gathered there from “a crime against humanity from within Al-Fath Mosque,” privately-owned Al-Masry Al-Youm reported.