Australia’s foreign minister Bob Carr is advising Australians to "exercise caution" in travelling to Egypt as millions rally in Cairo against Islamist president Mohamed Mursi.
"We are continuing to talk to other countries, the U.S. and the U.K. for example, about whether we should up the level of warning, but at this stage we say exercise due caution," Carr said while in Brunei for Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meetings.
In the latest incident, a Dutch journalist has been raped by a group of five men in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square.
The woman is believed to have undergone surgery for horrific injuries sustained in the attack, as a volunteer vigilante group formed to protect women in Tahrir Square reported a new wave of sexual violence by groups of men targeting women.
The demonstrations, which brought half a million people to Cairo’s central Tahrir Square and a similar crowd in the second city, Alexandria, were the largest since the Arab Spring uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
Dozens of militants attacked the Muslim Brotherhood’s national headquarters in Cairo with shotguns, petrol bombs and rocks, setting it on fire, and targeted offices of its political party across the country.
The US has authorised the departure of non-essential embassy staff in Egypt and told tourists "to defer non-essential travel to Egypt at this time due to the continuing possibility of political and social unrest".
The UK Foreign Office warned that some demonstrators were reportedly hostile and suspicious of any foreigners present.
