Shortly afterwards, Ban’s motorcade was caught up in a second protest on the square, this time by hundreds of Egyptians demonstrating outside the former foreign ministry for jobs, housing and a better life.
There were ugly scenes as police and troops forced back the crowd to enable the convoy to pass and take a detour through adjacent side streets to get the UN chief to a meeting with Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, our correspondent says.
1010 GMT: Around 50 demonstrators loyal to Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi have surrounded UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Cairo’s Tahrir Square, forcing him to retreat into the adjacent Arab League headquarters, a correspondent there reports.
Chanting “Down, Down USA, Libya, Libya,” and carrying banners and the national flag of Kadhafi’s Libya the protesters surged towards Ban and his 15-strong delegation that included a UN deputy secretary general and former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, the Under-Secretary General for Gender Equality at the UN.
The UN chief had been following in the footsteps of a string of international visitors to Cairo in recent weeks, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in touring the square which was the focus of mass protests that forced veteran president Hosni Mubarak from power last month.
Police and troops intervened to let the UN group make good their escape.
Ban was unhurt after the incident, the correspondent says.
1000 GMT: Welcome to our live report on the situation in Libya, where fresh attacks by Western forces flattened a building in leader Moamer Kadhafi’s Tripoli compound while Britain said it had aborted one strike because of the presence of civilians.
The second night of Operation Odyssey Dawn, to enforce a UN Security Council resolution aimed at stopping Kadhafi’s forces harming civilians as they battle an uprising, again saw strikes by aircraft and cruise missiles.
Stay with us for any new developments in the conflict.
© Copyright AFP Agence France-Presse GmbH – All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or distributed. All reproduction or redistribution is expressly forbidden without the prior written agreement of AFP.
