Photos circulated on social media Tuesday of activist Gaber Salah Gaber, with claims that he was killed in clashes on the streets surrounding Mohamed Mahmoud. Head of the emergency department at Qasr al-Aini Hospital Hesham Abu Aisha says Gaber is currently on life support in the intensive care unit.
He told MENA that Gaber was shot by rubber bullets in his head, neck, chest and arm. Aisha added that Gaber has a hematoma on the right lung.
Aisha said that shots had injured Gaber’s brain and that surgical intervention would be useless.
Clashes that began on Monday flared up again after a day of calm on Tuesday evening with both protesters and police throwing rocks at one another in the area surrounding Mohamed Mahmoud Street.
Clashes broke out in downtown Cairo Monday evening after security forces used tear gas to disperse protesters and prevent them from approaching the Interior Ministry.
Protesters “of unknown affiliations” attempted to break into the Shura Council (the parliament’s upper house) building and the nearby Qasr Al-Eini Hospital, according to state-run news agency MENA. The entrance to the square from Qasr Al-Eini Street has also been closed off.
According to Al Ahram, also a semi-official publication, clashes between police forces and protesters, which have erupted intermittently since Monday afternoon, continued into Tuesday evening after protesters regrouped on Qasr Al-Eini Street adjacent to Tahrir Square.
Gunfire was still being heard intermittently around the flashpoint square, according to MENA. Earlier Tuesday evening, an Ahram Online reporter saw volunteer doctors attempting to remove birdshot pellets from a protester’s body.
Al Ahram reported that skirmishes broke out Monday afternoon when protesters commemorating the anniversary of last year’s clashes began fighting with Central Security Forces near interior ministry headquarters on Nubar Street.
But no one actually knows why the clashes started in the first place. The interior ministry said that fighting began when “lurkers” threw stones and Molotov cocktails at security officers on Qasr Al-Eini Street.
Dozens were injured in the subsequent clashes, including two currently in critical condition.
Eight policemen and 20 soldiers were injured during the clashes on Monday, the interior ministry said.
Human rights activists and lawyers said a number of protesters had been arrested in Tahrir Square early Tuesday morning.
According to Egypt Independent, members of youth and political groups in the city of Mahalla in the Nile Delta governorate of Gharbiya besieged a police station on Tuesday evening, chanting slogans denouncing the Interior Ministry and the Muslim Brotherhood and demanding the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi and retribution for victims of the Mohamed Mahmoud Street violence.
They also demanded the dismissal of Hesham Qandil’s Cabinet and bring to trial those responsible for the Assiut train accident that killed over 50 children on Saturday. They said they would continue to demonstrate until their demands are met, and warned President Morsy of a revolution that would topple him.