Free Talk Live

Cairo residents boarded up homes and set up neighbourhood watches of citizens armed with guns, clubs and knives as looting and violence engulfed the capital.

With the police having disappeared from the streets, the army expanded its presence of tanks and armoured personnel carriers but mainly around government buildings. As night fell Saturday and the chaos continued, the military fanned out to neighbourhoods across the city in a bid to quell the lawlessness.

"The army guards big institutions like the gardens and museum, not people and their property," said Mighaz Sawzi, who lives in central Cairo. "God has to protect us, because who's going to protect us now?"