Updated 19.31
THE ISLAMIC STATE group has claimed responsibility for bombing two Egyptian churches as worshippers gathered to mark Palm Sunday, killing at least 44 people in the deadliest attacks on the Coptic Christian minority in recent memory.
The attacks followed a Cairo church bombing in December and came weeks ahead of a planned visit by Catholic Pope Francis intended to show support for the country’s Christian minority.
The first bombing struck the Mar Girgis church in the city of Tanta north of Cairo, killing 27 people, the health ministry said.
“I just felt fire grabbing my face. I pushed my brother who was sitting next to me and then I heard people saying: ‘explosion’,” one of the wounded told state television.
Emergency services had scrambled to the scene when another bombing rocked the Saint Mark’s church in Alexandria where Coptic Pope Tawadros II had been leading a Palm Sunday service.
Seventeen people including at least four police officers were killed in that attack, which the interior ministry said was caused by a suicide bomber who blew himself up when prevented from entering the church.
The ministry said Tawadros was unharmed, and a church official said he had left the church before the bombing.
The private CBC Extra channel aired footage of the Alexandria blast, with CCTV showing what appeared to be the church entrance engulfed in flame and flying concrete moments after a guard turned away a man.
Eyewitnesses said a police officer detected the bomber before he blew himself up.
At least 78 people were wounded in Tanta and another 40 wounded in Alexandria, the health ministry said.
A UN Security Council statement condemned the bombings as “heinous” and “cowardly”.
Egyptian officials denounced the violence as an attempt to sow divisions in the country, while Francis sent his “deep condolences” to Tawadros.
Egyptian officials denounced the violence as an attempt to sow divisions, and Francis sent his “deep condolences” to Tawadros.
IS claimed two Egyptian suicide bombers carried out both attacks and threatened further attacks in a statement published on social media.
After the bombings, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ordered military deployments to guard “vital and important infrastructure”, his office said.
State television reported that the interior minister sacked the provincial head of security and replaced him after the attack.
On March 29, the Mar Girgis church’s Facebook page said a “suspicious” device had been found outside the building that security services removed.
“I heard the blast and came running. I found people torn up… some people, only half of their bodies remained,” Nabil Nader, who lives in front of the Tanta church, said Sunday.
Worshippers had been celebrating Palm Sunday, one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar, marking Jesus’s triumphant entrance to Jerusalem.
Pope prays for victims
Pope Francis, who is due in Cairo on 28 April, offered prayers for the victims.
“Let us pray for the victims of the attack unfortunately carried out today,” he said.
May the Lord convert the heart of those who sow terror, violence and death and also the heart of those who make weapons and trade in them.
Copts, who make up about one tenth of Egypt’s population of more than 92 million and who celebrate Easter next weekend, have been targeted by several attacks in recent months.
Jihadists and Islamists accuse Copts of supporting the military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, which ushered in a deadly crackdown on his supporters.
In December, a suicide bombing claimed by IS killed 29 worshippers in a Cairo church.
The group later released a video threatening Egypt’s Christians with more attacks.
A spate of jihadist-linked attacks in the restive Sinai Peninsula, including the murder of a Copt in the city of El Arish, led some Coptic families to flee.
About 250 Christians took refuge in the Suez Canal city of Ismailiya after IS in February called for attacks on the minority.
US President Donald Trump led international condemnation of today’s attacks.
“So sad to hear of the terrorist attack in Egypt. US strongly condemns. I have great confidence that President Al Sisi will handle situation properly,” he tweeted.
String of attacks
Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail stressed the authorities’ determination to “eliminate terrorism”.
The Cairo-based Al-Azhar, an influential Sunni Muslim authority, said the attacks aimed to “destabilise security and… the unity of Egyptians”.
Egypt’s Copts have endured successive attacks since Morsi’s ousting in July 2013.
More than 40 churches were targeted nationwide in the two weeks after the deadly dispersal by security forces of two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo on August 14 that year, Human Rights Watch said.
Sisi, who as then army chief helped remove Morsi, has defended his security forces and accused jihadists of attacking Copts in order to divide the country.
In October 2011, almost 30 people – mostly Coptic Christians – were killed outside the state television building in Cairo after the army charged at protesters denouncing the torching of a church in southern Egypt.
A few months earlier, the unclaimed New Year’s Day bombing of a Coptic church killed more than 20 people in second city Alexandria.
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