CAIRO - EGYPTIAN riot police clashed on Sunday with stone-throwing pig farmers who were trying to prevent their animals being taken away for slaughter as part of a mass nationwide cull.

Between 300 and 400 residents of a slum district of Cairo, where mostly Coptic Christian scrap merchants raise pigs, hurled stones and bottles at police.

Anti-riot police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, most of them youths. An AFP correspondent said the demonstrators ransacked a police post and an officer fired warning shots in the air.

'They want to steal our livelihood,' protested one of the farmers, Adel Izhak, before police started to take control of the district.

Similar troubles broke out in Khanka, north of the capital, security officials said. Police were already repelled from Khanka by stone-throwers on Wednesday after the controversial cull was announced.

Egypt began the cull of the nation's 250,000 pigs on Saturday, despite the World Health Organisation saying there was no evidence the animals were transmitting swine flu to humans. The authorities are calling the slaughter a general health measure. No cases of swine flu, or influenza A(H1N1), have been reported in the Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world.

Egypt's pigs mostly belong to and are eaten by members of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority and are reared by rubbish collectors in Cairo's shantytowns. Islam bans the consumption of pork for the majority Muslims.

The rubbish collectors, who used the pigs to dispose of organic waste and sell off some animals from their herds once a year, say the cull will affect their business and wipe out a crucial source of income.

Although no cases of swine flu have been reported in Egypt, the country has been battling an outbreak of bird flu for three years.

Is this article useful to you?