6 killed, 49 injured in clashes near Egyptian Defense Ministry

Cairo, May 2 (Xinhua-ANI): Six people were killed and 49 others injured in clashes in Abbasiya district in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, where the Defense Ministry is located, an official from the Egyptian Health Ministry said Wednesday.

Forty-two injured were carried to Dar el-Shifaa Hospital and other nearby hospitals while three cases were treated at the scene, official news agency MENA quoted head of the Health Ministry's Emergency Cases Department Dr Khaled el-Tayyeb as saying.

The injured sustained slight cut wounds, bruises and gunshots, said Tayyeb.

The clashes erupted Wednesday morning between protesters supporting disqualified Salafist presidential candidate Hazem Abou Ismail and unknown thugs, according to an announcement by the ministry.

The unknown assailants attacked the protesters with cement- based bombs, stones, birdshot guns and teargas canisters, the official al-Ahram website reported.

Gunfire were heard near Abbasiya district, and traffic nearby was crowded and slow.

This was the second clash in the area within 72 hours, after the first had left one killed and more than 100 others injured.

Abou Ismail's supporters are in an open ended sit-in in Cairo's Tahrir square, opposing the country's presidential election commission's decision to exclude Abou Ismail from the contest on the basis that his mother has a U.S. passport. (Xinhua-ANI)