EGYPT DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY

Egypt's presidency has declared a state of emergency after
scores of people were killed when security forces stormed
protest camps in Cairo.
The camps had been occupied by supporters of former
president Mohammed Morsi, who was deposed in early July.
Security forces say 95 people have been killed, but the Muslim
Brotherhood says hundreds have died.
The state of emergency will begin at 16:00 local time (1400
GMT), and last for a month.
Shortly after dawn on Wednesday morning, armoured
bulldozers moved deep into the main protest camp outside the
eastern Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque.
Officials say the other protest camp, at Nahda Square, has
now been cleared.
Graphic accounts of bloodshed emerged from the protest
camps as reporters described wounded protesters being
treated next to the dead in makeshift field hospitals.
The 17-year-old daughter of leading Muslim Brotherhood
figure Mohamed el-Beltagy was among the dead, reports say.
Asmaa el-Beltagy was shot in the back and chest, her brother
said.
A cameraman working for Sky News, Mick Deane, has also
been killed in the violence.
There were reports of unrest elsewhere in Egypt.
At least five people have been killed in the province of Suez,
according to the health ministry. Witnesses say Morsi
supporters attempted to storm government buildings there
Clashes have also been reported in the northern provinces of
Alexandria and Beheira, and the central provinces of Assiut
and Menya
Hundreds are said to have gathered outside the governor's
office in Aswan in the south
Morsi supporters are reported to have blocked roads in
Alexandria
State news agency Mena says three churches were attacked in
central Egypt, one in the city of Sohag with a large number of
Coptic Christian residents
The interior ministry said a mopping-up operation in the
streets surrounding Nahda Square was under way.
Pro-Morsi activists were chased into the nearby zoo and Cairo
University, Nile TV said.

Continue reading the main story

At the scene
James Reynolds
BBC News, Cairo

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Shortly before seven in the morning, from a street corner near
the Rabaa mosque encampment, I watched the raid begin.
An armoured military bulldozer drove down towards the
barricades on the edges of the encampment. The bulldozer
pushed its way through rows of bricks and sandbags. Pro-
Morsi protesters responded by throwing stones and burning
tyres.
At the same time, riot police in armoured personnel carriers
advanced through nearby streets. For more than two hours I
heard the crack of live ammunition. The sharp bangs were
accompanied by the deeper thud of tear gas explosions.
For a while, it was hard to breathe without a gas mask. Some
local residents held handkerchiefs to their faces - and watched
the police deployment from their balconies.
BBC witnesses clearance
It is still unclear how many casualties were caught up in the
two Cairo operations. Figures differ widely and have been
impossible to verify independently.
Khaled Ezzelarab, a reporter for the BBC Arabic service, said
he counted at least 50 bodies at the makeshift hospitals
around Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque.
Ikhwanonline, the website of the Muslim Brotherhood, which
supports the protests, says that in total more than 800 were
killed.
The health ministry has issued an official death toll of 95.
The interior ministry denied any deaths were caused by its
forces firing live ammunition.
"Security forces used only tear gas canisters to disperse the
protesters though it was heavily fired at by armed elements
from inside the two protest camps, causing the death of an
officer and a conscript and the injury of four policemen and
two conscripts," the ministry said in a statement.
The government has meanwhile congratulated the security
forces on their operation to clear the camps.
In a televised statement, a government spokesman praised
their "self-restraint" and spoke of the "smaller number" of
injuries among protesters.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east