Renewed tribal clashes kill two more people in southern Egypt

CAIRO - At least two more people were killed in renewed tribal clashes in southern Egypt on Sunday, after 48 hours of violence that left 23 dead, security officials said.

The fresh violence came despite a beefed-up police presence in Aswan province to end fighting between the Bani Hilal, an Arab tribe, and the Dabudiya, a Nubian family.

Tribal vendettas are common in Egypt's poor, rural south, but police called the latest outbreak of violence the worst in recent memory.

Apart from the two dead, at least five other people were wounded in Sunday's clashes, the security officials said.

Long-standing rivalry flared Thursday after a woman was sexually accosted and both sides scrawled insulting graffiti, the interior ministry said.

Twenty-three people were killed in clashes over the next two days, including three people in a botched reconciliation meeting that ended in a gunbattle.

Interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab and his interior minister Mohammed Ibrahim both visited Aswan on Saturday to try to end the violence.

The army also said it intervened, accusing the Muslim Brotherhood of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi of involvement in the unrest.

Since the army ousted Morsi last July, the military-installed authorities have blamed the Brotherhood for violence which has rocked Egypt daily for the past nine months.