Protest in front of Libyan embassy in Cairo

Supporters of the Libyan uprising demonstrated outside the Libyan embassy in Cairo on Sunday, calling for the ouster of longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi and an end to the violent suppression of anti-government protesters.

Chanting: “the people want to execute the criminal Gadhafi”, protesters held banners such as “United Nations help Libya”.

Libyan forces fired machine-guns at mourners marching in a funeral for anti-government protesters in the eastern city of Benghazi on Sunday, a day after commandos and foreign mercenaries loyal to Gadhafi pummelled demonstrators with assault rifles and other heavy weaponry.

A doctor at one city hospital said his morgue had received at least 200 dead from six days of unrest.

The doctor said his hospital, one of two in Libya’s second-largest city, is out of supplies and cannot treat more than 70 wounded in similar attacks on mourners on Saturday and other clashes.

The crackdown in oil-rich Libya is shaping up to be the most brutal

repression of anti-government protests that began with uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

“The people in Libya were inspired by the revolution in Egypt and Yemen.

But nothing compares with what has been taking place with the brutalities that

are taking place there,” said Loai Omran, who was protesting outside the embassy

in Cairo.

The protests spread quickly around the region to Bahrain in the Gulf,

impoverished Yemen in the Arabian Peninsula, the North African neighbours of

Tunisia – Libya, Algeria, Morocco – and outside the Middle East to places

including the East African nation of Djibouti and even China.

Libya’s rebellion by those frustrated with Gadhafi’s more than 40 years of authoritarian rule has spread to more than a half-dozen cities.

Benghazi has been at the centre of unrest.

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