Egypt Vigilantes Kill Two Men As Crowd Watches

Two Egyptian men accused of stealing a rickshaw and trying to kidnap a girl were beaten and hung by their feet while some in a crowd of thousands chanted "kill them!".

Both men died in the vigilante attack in the town of Samanod, about 90km (55 miles) north of Cairo.

The lynchings come a week after the attorney general's office encouraged civilians to arrest criminals and hand them over to police.

State-run newspaper Ahram reported the two men were killed after being caught "red-handed" trying to steal the motorised rickshaw.

Witnesses said they were also accused of kidnapping a girl inside the rickshaw, but she escaped unharmed.

The two men were beaten and were still alive before they were strung up from the rafters of an open-air bus station, a witness said.

Both were stripped down to their underwear.

Graphic photos and recordings of the lynchings taken by people in the crowd quickly circulated on social media websites.

The images show one of the men hanging with deep, bloody lacerations covering his back.

Another shows a man's face completely covered in blood. Other shots show both hanging by their feet, bruised, cut and bleeding.

Mamdouh al-Muneer, spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood in Gharbiya, the province where the attack happened, said the lynchings followed a spate of rapes in the area.

He told the Associated Press (AP) there have been a number of cases in recent months where girls were abducted while leaving school.

"Unfortunately, the police are completely out of the picture in Gharbiya," he said.

A photographer who witnessed the killings told the AP that women and children were in the crowd of about 3,000 watching the killings.

Some were on balconies overlooking the scene, while some joined chants of "kill them!", he said.

The photographer, who was not named, said some in the crowd threatened to kill him if he took pictures of the lynchings with his professional camera.

Security officials said some people tried to help free the two men but were pushed back by others.

Afterward, residents took their bodies and dumped them on the doorstep of a nearby police station, according to witnesses.

Ahram said police could not reach the scene because angry drivers had cut off all the major roads nearby to protest a fuel shortage, another big problem in Egypt.

Witnesses said they were bracing for possible feuds between residents of Samanod and the nearby village of Mahallahit Ziyad, where the two men were from.

The lynchings are symptomatic of the chaos sweeping Egypt and a massive security breakdown.

People have increasingly taken matters into their own hands following the 2011 uprising that ousted authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak.

The country's once powerful and feared police force was left weakened after the revolt and thousands of police officers are now on strike over working conditions.

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