At least two people were killed in the Egyptian capital on Sunday when soldiers clashed with residents they were expelling from a Nile river island the military claims as its land, a security official said.

Two officers and three conscripts were also wounded as soldiers and residents traded fire, according the official.

Residents, who later cut a main Cairo road and burned tyres as women wailed on the street, said there were more dead on the island which the soldiers had now taken over, but there was no way of verifying the claim.

Police blocked off the thoroughfare and mustered conscripts who waited in trucks roughly half a kilometre from where the island's former residents were protesting.