PALM SUNDAY ATTACKS
Egypt’s Coptic Christians targeted
• Bombs that exploded at two Coptic churches during Palm Sunday services killing 43 people may mark the beginning of a new campaign of violence against the ancient Christian community.
Bombers managed to evade security measures to launch their attacks at the start of Holy Week leading up to Easter.
In the first attack, a bomb went off inside St. George’s Church in the Nile Delta city of Tanta, killing at least 27 people and wounding 78, officials said.
Television footage from Tanta showed people singing hymns before the bomb went off, then the screen went black and screams and cries could be heard.
Priests and the church choir were among the casualties as the bomb went off near the altar.
“Everything is destroyed inside the church” and blood can be seen on marble pillars, Peter Kamel told CNN.
“I ran to the church to find my lifelong friend shattered to pieces by the bomb,” said Mona Faiez, 61, who lives near the church and came running after she heard the blast. Her friend, Soliman Shaker, was a church deacon.
“What kind of human could do this and why?”
“I was at the altar when I heard the explosion. I fell to the ground,” said church steward Victor Foad.
On gazing upon the aftermath, he said: “I kept looking at the human remains, but I didn’t recognize who was who because their faces were so damaged, even though I know them.”
The church entrance was equipped with a detector for weapons and explosives — leading many to wonder how the atrocity could have happened.
A few hours later, a suicide bomber rushed toward St. Mark’s Cathedral in the coastal city of Alexandria, the historic seat of Christendom in Egypt, killing at least 16 people and wounding 41, the Interior Ministry said.
Pope Tawadros II had held Palm Sunday services at the cathedral, but his aides said he had escaped unharmed. The timing of the attack raised the question of whether the bomber had sought to assassinate the pope, leader of one of the world’s oldest Christian communities.
Fadi Sami, who had earlier been inside the cathedral, returned after the bombing.
“There were bodies and body parts everywhere, outside and inside the gate. I saw a man put together what was left of his son in a bag,” he told CNN.
Eyewitnesses said the Alexandria attack happened outside the main gate of the church compound, after the suicide bomber was blocked by police from entering. “When the police officer tried to stop him by force, he exploded the explosive belt, killing the police officer and himself,” said Kameel Sadiq Sawiras, secretary general of the church council.
I RAN TO THE CHURCH TO FIND MY LIFELONG FRIEND SHATTERED TO PIECES.
The atrocities are the latest assault on a religious minority increasingly targeted by Islamist terrorists, and a challenge to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has pledged to protect them in his campaign against extremism.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed the attacks after having recently warned that it would step up violence against Egypt’s Christians.
More recently, hundreds of Christians fled Egypt’s volatile Sinai Peninsula after militants aligned with ISIL killed several Christians, attacking their homes or in drive-by shootings.
Pope Francis, marking Palm Sunday in St. Peter’s Square, decried the bombings, expressing “deep condolences to my brother, Pope Tawadros II, the Coptic church and all of the dear Egyptian nation.”
He is due to visit Egypt April 28-29.
President Donald Trump tweeted that he is “so sad to hear of the terrorist attack” against the U.S. ally but added that he has “great confidence” that Sisi, “will handle the situation properly.” The two leaders met at the White House on April 3.
Grand Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, head of Egypt’s Al-Azhar — the leading centre of learning in Sunni Islam — also condemned the attacks, calling them a “despicable terrorist bombing that targeted the lives of innocents.”
The bombings added to fears that Islamic extremists who have long been battling security forces in the Sinai Peninsula are shifting their focus to civilians.