Clashes leave two dead in Cairo

Clashes between the supporters and opponents of Egypt’s ousted President Mohamed Morsi have left two people dead in Cairo, state news agency MENA reports.

The agency quoted emergency services as saying that a 12-year-old boy and a man died on Friday in Cairo’s southern Giza neighborhood.

Egypt’s Interior Ministry also noted three people were wounded in the clashes between the two sides in the neighborhood while MENA said violence across Egypt, mainly in cities in the Nile Delta, injured a total of 20 people.

Security officials in Egypt said that police used tear gas to break up protests in Cairo and northern coastal city of Alexandria.

Egypt has been experiencing unrelenting violence since July 3, when the army toppled the government of Morsi, suspended the constitution, and dissolved the parliament. It also appointed the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Adly Mahmoud Mansour, as the new interim president.

Supporters of Morsi have held near-daily protests since his overthrow. Thousands of his backers marched on Friday in different provinces across Egypt.

The development comes as Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy said on Friday that the country would hold presidential elections in early summer, after parliamentary polls in February or March.

He said that the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party “is still legal” and can participate in the elections.

On November 6, an Egyptian court upheld a September 23 ruling that banned the group’s activities and ordered its assets confiscated.

Egypt’s military-backed interim government has launched a bloody crackdown on Morsi supporters and arrested more than 2,000 Brotherhood members, including the party’s leader, Mohamed Badie, who was detained on August 20.

About 1,000 people were killed in a week of violence between Morsi supporters and security forces after police dispersed their protest camps in a deadly operation on August 14.