Student Killed During Northern Egypt March

A university student was gunned down on Wednesday during an opposition march in the northern province of Sharqiya, a student movement has said.



"Mohamed Hamed, a medical school student from Al-Azhar University, was killed by policemen during a march in Sharqiya," Students Against the Coup, a movement that backs ousted President Mohamed Morsi, said on its Facebook page.



It added that the student had instantly died after being shot.



The Anadolu Agency could not immediately obtain comments from the Interior Ministry on the claims of the student group.



A Health Ministry official said, however, that the student was killed by gunfire from unidentified people.



"The student, 20, was killed by gunfire from unidentified people, not by security forces during protest dispersal," Khaled al-Khattib, the head of the Emergency Section at the ministry, told AA.



A source from Sharqiya Security Directorate, meanwhile, denied reports about clashes between policemen and the students participating in the march.



"Policemen had arrived when the march was already over," the source AA.



He said the students used fireworks during the event, noting that policemen found the body of the victim on the ground when they arrived at the scene.



The source said the authorities had opened an investigation into the death of the student.



Morsi's backers have been staging protests since his ouster by the army in July of 2013.



www.aa.com.tr/en - Kahire