Seventy-nine people died across Egypt on Saturday during political violence and 549 were wounded, the state news agency MENA said on Sunday, quoting government figures.
The latest tally means at least 830 people have died in Egypt since Wednesday in clashes pitting supporters of deposed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi against the security forces.
This as Egypt's army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, said in a speech to military and police officers that his message to the supporters of deposed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi is that "there is room for everyone in Egypt".
But in his first public comments since last week's security crackdown on Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, Sisi also warned that anyone who resorts to violence would not be tolerated.
Meanwhile, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood risks
political elimination, with the new army-backed government threatening to ban
the Islamist organization after launching a fierce crackdown on its supporters
that has killed hundreds.
Struggling to stamp its authority on Egypt
following the ousting last month of President Mohamed Morsi, the country's new
rulers have upped the rhetoric, saying the Arab world's most populous nation is
at war with terrorism.
However, some 38 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood
died on Sunday in a riot at an Egyptian prison, security sources said.
The Interior Ministry did not immediately confirm the exact death toll,
but said in a statement that a number of detainees had died after
trying to escape from a prison.
Earlier, Egyptian prosecutors have placed
250 Muslim Brotherhood supporters under investigation for murder, attempted
murder and terrorism, the state MENA news agency said.
Police arrested more than 1,000 Brotherhood
sympathizers in the wake of clashes on Friday that pitted followers of deposed
Islamist President Mohamed Mursi against the security forces. More than 170
people died nationwide in the violence that day.
More than 700 people have died, most of
them backers of Morsi, in four days of violence. That has earned Egypt stiff
condemnation from Western nations, uncomfortable with Islamist rule but also
with the overthrow of an elected government.
The crackdown has, however, drawn messages
of support from key Arab allies like Saudi Arabia, which have long feared the
spread of Brotherhood ideology to the Gulf monarchies.
Blaming a defiant Brotherhood for the
bloodshed, Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi proposed dissolving the
group in a move that would force it underground and could usher in mass arrests
of its members countrywide.
The government said it was studying the
possibility.
"There will be no reconciliation with
those whose hands have been stained with blood and who turned weapons against
the state and its institutions," Beblawi told reporters.
A statement from the United Nations said
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned attacks on churches, hospitals and
other public facilities and called for both sides to resolve the violence.
"The secretary-general believes that
preventing further loss of life should be the Egyptians' highest priority at
this dangerous moment," the statement said. "With such sharp
polarization in Egyptian society, both the authorities and the political
leaders share the responsibility for ending the current violence."
Violence flared briefly on Saturday as
backers of Morsi exchanged fire with security forces in a central Cairo mosque,
where scores of Muslim Brotherhood protesters had sought refuge from clashes
the day before that killed 95 in the capital.
Police finally cleared the building and
made a string of arrests, with crowds on the street cheering them on and
harassing foreign reporters trying to cover the scene.
"We as Egyptians feel deep bitterness
towards coverage of the events in Egypt," presidential political adviser
Mostafa Hegazy said, accusing Western media of ignoring attacks on police and
the destruction of churches blamed on Islamists.
REUTERS
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