Egypt’s Christians bury victims of Minya attack

minya — Thousands of Christian mourners prepared on Saturday to bury six members of the same family who were killed while returning from a baptism at a Coptic monastery in Egypt’s Minya province.

Gunmen opened fire on Friday on two buses near the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor in Minya, 260km up the River Nile from Cairo, killing seven people and wounding another 18, including children.

The attack was claimed by Daesh which, along with affiliated groups, has said it was responsible for several on Egypt’s Christians, including one that killed 28 people in almost the same spot in May 2017.

Although Egypt’s army and police launched a crackdown on the militant groups in February, some of the Christian mourners blamed security lapses for repeated attacks against them.

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi vowed to push ahead with the campaign.

“There is a mix of sadness and pain; sadness as these painful events are being repeated and pain because Copts are part of this homeland and part of its fabric,” Bishop Macarius, head of the Coptic diocese in Minya, told mourners at the local Prince Tadros Church. —

AFP Egyptian relatives and friends of Assad Labib, 35, an attack victim, react during his funeral at the Anglican church in Sawaada village near Minya city on Saturday. —