A police officer attempting to end a dispute between two families in the south-east Cairo district of Moqattam allegedly killed a woman Monday.
Two Christian families were fighting close to St Simon’s Church. To disperse the crowd and control the situation, the head of the Manshiyet Nasser police station’s Investigation Department fired shots in the air, an eyewitness told state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram.
One of the bullets hit a woman who was watching the quarrel from her balcony, leading to her instant death.
According to the Ministry of Interior’s media office, the two families were firing at each other.
“Ask the prosecution whose bullet killed the woman,” they told Daily News Egypt, in response to whether the shot came from the police officer.
Residents detained the officer and beat him until priests from the church took him to the church’s hospital. A prosecution official arrived at the scene and pledged a serious and impartial investigation into the incident, with a fair trial for the police officer.
