Cairo: Twenty-six students from the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s most powerful opposition group, were detained during a police raid on Saturday.

A source from the Brotherhood said the students from Cairo’s Ain Shams University had been on holiday in Alexandria when police raided their lodgings at dawn.

The security source said they had been detained for holding meetings and possessing Brotherhood literature.

The government considers the Brotherhood an illegal organisation and frequently detains its members, often releasing them without charge after days or weeks in detention.