Cairo, July 16 (Xinhua) -- A man was killed and dozens others were wounded on Sunday in clashes between policemen and state-owned land squatters at a district in Giza near the capital Cairo, official statements and eyewitnesses said.
"A citizen was killed and 19 other civilians were injured in clashes between residents and policemen during a campaign to remove the encroachments on state-owned lands at Giza's Warraq island in the Nile River," the Health Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
The ministry sent 15 ambulances to the scene that took the injured people to nearby hospitals while the dead man's body was taken to the morgue of Warraq public hospital.
Most of the injuries resulted from suffocation and bird shots.
On the other hand, the police said in a statement on Sunday that the clashes injured eight policemen, including two generals, besides 29 police conscripts and workers.
The campaign was meant to carry out about 700 encroachment removals and to study legalizing the situations of some other lands in the island.
The police said that they were attacked by squatters, some carrying guns and bird hunting rifles and others throwing stones, "which led the forces to fire tear gas bombs to disperse the crowds."
"The clashes left one dead and 19 wounded from the rioters and the police arrested ten of them," said the police statement.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi ordered in May a nationwide campaign to recover encroached state-owned lands and the government since then restored control over massive areas of them.
