Thirteen people were killed in violence between Christians and Muslims as sectarian tensions resurfaced in Cairo as the new Egyptian government met for the first time.
The health ministry said the 13 people were killed and 140 wounded in violence last night ignited by tensions built up since an arson attack on a church south of Cairo on Saturday.
The clashes pose another challenge to the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed
Forces as it charts Egypt's course towards elections that will return power to a civilian, elected government within six months.
The revolution that swept president Hosni Mubarak from power on February 11th was characterised by Christian-Muslim solidarity. Egyptians hoped the uprising had buried tensions that have flared up with increasing regularity in recent years.
It was not clear how many of the dead were Christian or Muslim. The trouble had started on a Cairo highway where Christians had been protesting over the arson attack on the church south of the capital in Helwan.
The protests spread elsewhere in the capital and hundreds of people faced off in the violence, hurling petrol bombs and rocks, witnesses said.
The injuries included head wounds, bruises, bullet wounds and broken limbs, the state news agency quoted a senior health ministry official as saying. At least one of the dead, an 18-year-old Christian, had been shot in the back.
The attack on the church was triggered by a family dispute over a romance between a Muslim woman and a Christian man.
Similar stories have triggered strife in the past. Hundreds of Christians have been protesting outside the Cairo headquarters of state television since the attack.
Seeking to contain tensions, field marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, has said the military would rebuild the church before Easter.
The Coptic Church, which represents the minority Christian population, issued no comment on the violence and a church official declined to comment. In the past, the church has typically urged calm after such violence.
Reuters