Egypt: student killed in Azhar clashes

A student was shot dead in clashes between Egyptian police and Islamist students on Saturday at Cairo's Al-Azhar university, health ministry officials said.

The 19-year-old student was killed as police entered the campus to confront violent protesters who torched the commerce faculty building, the officials told Agence France-Presse.

Shaimaa Mounir, a member of the pro-Brotherhood “Students Against the Coup” movement, said that the student named Khaled el-Haddad died of a wound, though it was not clear whether he had been hit by birdshot or another kind of ammunition, according to Reuters news agency.

State television reported that the students, loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood, fought police and set fire to two buildings, with broadcasted footage of black smoke billowing from the faculty of commerce building and said “terrorist students” had set the agriculture faculty building on fire as well.

Earlier this week, the Brotherhood was designated as a terrorist organization by the state.

Al-Azhar, a respected center of Sunni Islamic learning, has for months been the scene of protests against what the Brotherhood calls a “military coup” that deposed Islamist Mohammad Mursi as president after a year in office.

(With Reuters and AFP)