Seven people were injured in continuing clashes between Muslims and Christians in the Egyptian capital Cairo, media reported.
Sources said a Muslim, who had a quarrel with a group of Christian protesters outside the state television building, called his friends and they arrived and fired on them injuring a few.
This provoked larger-scale clashes, which left several others wounded.
Relations between the Coptic Christian and Muslim communities in Egypt have grown sour recently.
A total of 12 people died, with over 200 injured in clashes between Muslims and Christians near Cairo on May 7, which started after hundreds of radical Muslim Salafists attacked the St. Mina Coptic Orthodox Church in Cairo’s northwestern suburb Imbaba to free a Christian woman they claimed was held against her will because she wanted to convert to Islam.
Two churches were set on fire.
Later, the local authorities said the woman had not been held in the church.
The clashes were stopped by police and the military. Egypt’s Grand Mufti Ali Gumaa denounced the clashes and called on Egyptians to do everything possible to avoid interfaith confrontation.
Muslims account for some 90% and Christians for about 10% of Egypt’s 80-million population.
Relations between the two communities are sometimes darkened by acts of violence, often over Muslims’ claims that Christian women who converted to Islam were kidnapped and forcibly held by Copts.
The Christian minority complains of unfair treatment in the country.
CAIRO, May 15 (RIA Novosti)