Global Arab Network | Pigs erupt clashes in Egypt

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Pigs erupt clashes in Egypt

Egyptian pig farmers have clashed with police in Cairo, while they were trying to stop their animals being slaughtered. Between 300 and 400 residents of the hilly Moqattam slum district of Cairo, where mostly Coptic Christian scrap merchants raise pigs, hurled stones and bottles at police.

Anti-riot police replied by firing rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, most of them youths. An AFP correspondent said protesters ransacked a police post and an officer fired warning shots in the air.

A security official and pig farmers said in the evening that government workers will return on Monday to begin confiscating the pigs, the government having promised the farmers compensation.

Seven policemen were slightly injured in the Moqattam clashes, a security official said, while at least eight demonstrators were hurt, according to the correspondent and a medic.

One injured protester lay sedated in a neighbourhood hospital bed, with birdshot wounds to his thighs and stomach.

At least five protesters were dragged away by police, two of them bloodied. A community leader later told pig farmers and rubbish collectors gathered at a church in the slum that the arrested men had been released.

"They want to steal our livelihood," protested one of the farmers, Adel Izhak, in the Moqattam area of Manshiyet Nasr, home to about 35,000 scrap and recycling merchants known as the "zabaleen."(AFP)

The new virus strain -- a mix of swine, avian and human viruses -- is being spread by people, not pigs. But culling swine, largely viewed as unclean in Muslim Egypt, could help quell any public panic in the most populous Arab country.

Pigs are mainly raised by the Christian minority, and government officials have complained that some farmers are trying to hide their pigs, making it harder for officials to carry out the cull. (Reuters)

The World Health Organisation has identified 787 H1N1 infections in 17 countries, including in Egypt's neighbour Israel, and said there were 19 confirmed deaths in Mexico.

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