CAIRO, March 5 (RIA Novosti) - Fourteen people were killed in Egypt and 11 others were wounded in a dispute over land which escalated into armed clashes northwest of Cairo, security officials said on Wednesday.
The fighting erupted between armed bodyguards employed by two groups after one of them tried to take control of a 200-hectare plot of land in the Wadi al-Faragh area.
The shootout ended only after the intervention of police.
The land, located on the road from Cairo to Alexandria, is famous for Christian monasteries. Land prices in the region have seen a hike in recent years amid a construction boom.
Officials stressed that there was no religious aspect to the clashes. "It was a purely financial dispute between investors and there was absolutely nothing sectarian about it," the africasia.com news portal quoted a security official as saying.
