Cairo: Six people, including five children, were killed in a gun battle among members of a clan in south Egypt, said police and medical sources on Friday.
Men from the clan of Al Taalba in a village near the town of Jerja, some 500 south of Cairo, battled it out in a dispute after one of them divorced a relative woman, added the police.
Machine guns were used in the fight, which also left three seriously injured.
The five dead children aged from seven to 10 years. A 38-year-old peasant from the same clan was also killed.
The village’s residents have remained indoors since the battle erupted early on Friday, witnesses told local media. The villagers are worried that the fighting will break out again, they added.
Security forces were deployed across the area as police were hunting for the suspected killers who are still at large.
Smuggled weapons have become rife in Egypt, mainly in the ultra-conservative south, since a popular uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak and undermined police’s grip more than two years ago.
