At least 23 people have been killed in tribal clashes in Egypt’s southern Aswan province after a man from one group accosted a woman from another, officials said Saturday.

At least 23 people have been killed in tribal clashes in Egypt's southern Aswan province after a man from one group accosted a woman from another, officials said Saturday.

Tribal vendettas are common in the poor, rural south, but the violence that first erupted on Friday is the worst in recent memory, police said.

Longstanding tensions between Bani Hilal tribesmen and the Nubian Dabudiya family emerged after the woman was accosted on Thursday, the interior ministry said.

The health ministry said 20 were killed in renewed fighting on Saturday, a day after a failed reconciliation meeting between the two sides ended in a gun battle that killed three.

Security officials has earlier said the meeting took place on Thursday.

Police said the clashes had subsided by the afternoon after they sent in reinforcements to quell the unrest.

Police began to reassert themselves across the country only recently, after a breakdown in law and order following a 2011 uprising that overthrew strongman Hosni Mubarak.