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2 Feb, 2012 19:25

Police fire tear gas at outraged Cairo protesters (VIDEO)

One more person has died in Egypt, where clashes between police and protesters continue to rage in the wake of Wednesday’s football mayhem in Port Said in which 79 died. Two more people died in the subsequent riots.

The latest victim was reported killed on Friday in Cairo. A volunteer doctor said the man had died after being hit by birdshot fired at close range outside the Interior Ministry.On Thursday the area around the ministry was the scene of a massive row which ended with over 400 people injured. Violence flared when some 10,000 angry protesters pushed their way through barbed wire barriers to the building near Tahrir Square.And on Wednesday night two people died in Suez after police opened fire on a 3,000-strong mob tried to storm a police station.  The crowd were furious at the failure of security forces to prevent Wednesday’s tragedy.

Protesters blame the country's security forces for failing to prevent a series of brawls that killed dozens and left hundreds more injured after a football match on Wednesday.

A riot in the Egyptian city of Port Said has left 79 dead and hundreds wounded after football fans stormed the pitch before engaging in running battles inside the stadium. The government has announced three days of mourning in the country.

Oxford University history lecturer Mark Almond told RT that some want to use the chaos in Egypt for their own benefit, and that there are two plausible “conspiracy versions” of what is really happening there.“One is that the government of Marshal Tantawi wants chaos in order to say, ‘Only the army can save Egypt,’” Almond explained. “The other is that there are people who want to say: ‘Look, we – the people who’ve been running Egypt for the last year, since Mubarak fell – need a complete change, we need to get rid of the military.’ Both of these have some plausibility, but no concrete evidence for them as yet.”Almond added that the most tragic part of the situation is that Egyptian police incompetency alone has led to a huge number of deaths.“Their incompetent behavior … set fire to the imaginations of people who want to believe such a tragedy must have a deeper reason,” he said.

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