Everything that’s wrong

A fire in a small Giza church in Imbaba highlights

A fire that erupted in a Giza church on Sunday 14 August, claiming 41 lives and wounding 14, has had all Egypt in an uproar. Grief over the loss of so many lives, including children, was augmented by true and false claims that went viral on social media causing widespread anger beside the sorrow. As always,

adhered to the strict facts in posting news or reports on the incident and its aftermath; we sincerely hope our “voice crying in the wilderness would help set matters straight. The paper is publishing a special issue on Sunday 21 August dedicated to everything concerning the incident.

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The fire erupted on Sunday morning around 8am, during Mass, in the church of Abu-Seifein St Mercurius in the district of alMunira al-Gharbiya—also known as al-Mataar—in Imbaba, Giza, in Greater Cairo.

According to figures released by the Health Ministry and the Coptic Orthodox Church, 41 worshippers lost their lives and 14 were injured and hospitalised. Fr Abdel-Massih Bekheit who was celebrating Mass was among the dead, also the young church cantor Romany Ezzat. The Interior Ministry announced that two police officers and three firefighters were injured.

Official investigations are underway to know to reason of the blaze. There is no official news yet, but local Copts say the fire erupted owing to an explosion in the church’s electric generator which was operating in the wake of a power cut; once the power was back, the generator is said to have erupted in flames. Others claim that the fire started in an air conditioning unit owing to electric malfunction.

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In a statement issued by the Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Tawadros expressed sorrow and pain at the incident, saying:

We are agonised at the painful incident that occurred this morning at the church of Abu-Seifein in Imbaba, northern Giza. We are in constant contact with the local authorities, the Health Ministry and all officials concerned.

“We offer our condolences to those who lost loved ones, and pray for the injured, placing our trust in the hands of our merciful God.

The Pope dispatched a Church delegation formed of Anba ulius, Bishop-General of Old Cairo and Head of the Bishopric of Social Services; Fr .yrillos Anba Bishoy, Manager of the Papal Office; and Fr Raphael Safwat to visit the injured in hospital and pay a call on Anba uhanna, Bishop of North Giza to offer condolences. In hospital, they conveyed to the injured a message of the Pope’s true affection, care, and constant prayers for them, and also anointed them with holy oil.

Pope Tawadros will be meeting the families of the victims very soon, but he had not met them until went to press.

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On social media, President Abdel-Fattah al

Sisi wrote offering sincere condolences to the families of the Copts “who lost their lives as they worshipped in a house of God. The President ensured all possible care would be given to the injured. He called Pope Tawadros to express condolences and full support. He issued directives to the Construction Authority of the Egyptian Armed Forces to directly restore and renovate the church.

Giza Governor Ahmad Rashed rushed to the site of the church, then visited the injured in hospital.

Also visiting the injured was a visibly moved Minister of Social Solidarity Nevine al-.abbag who said the government would pay EGP50,000 to families who had lost their fathers, EGP25,000 for the loss of a member of the family, and EGP5,000 to each of the injured. A monthly pension would be paid to families who lost their breadwinners, she said.

Earlier in the afternoon, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly flew in from New Alamein where he had been on work. He inspected the site of the fire and talked to the Church officials and the people there then, accompanied by Health Minister .haled Abdel-Ghaffar, Social Solidarity Minister Nevine al-.abbag, and Local Development Minister Hisham Amna, he visited the injured in hospital. Giza Governor Ahmad Rashed had visited them that morning and promised adequate financial support. The Prime Minister expressed his grief at the huge loss in lives and place, saying: “We are all brothers in one homeland; what hurts any of us hurts us all . He said work would directly start on restoring the building so that it would be even better than the one that was burnt.

The Armed Forces’ construction corps did start work directly, promising to have the church in working order in record time.

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Funeral services were held that evening for the 41 victims of the fire.

In view of the large number of victims, it was impractical to hold one funeral service for all of them together, so they were split into two groups: a service was held for one group at the church of the Holy irgin and Archangel Michael in Imbaba, and another was simultaneously held at the nearby church of the Holy irgin. Presiding over the services were a number of bishops including Anba uhanna, Bishop of South Giza.

Meanwhile, condolences flowed in from inside and outside Egypt, with numerous institutions, senior officials, and public figures expressing their grief, condolences to the families who lost loved ones, and good wishes to the wounded. Among them has been Mrs Intissar al-Sisi, wife of Egypt’s President; the Egyptian Armed Forces; Speaker of the House of Representatives Hanafy Gibaly; heads of the Churches in Egypt; the Ecumenical Institute for the Middle East, Grand Imam of al-Azhar who also promised financial help to the victims’ families; the Islamic Dar al-Iftaa’; the Supreme Media Council; and the National Disability Council.

Copts took to social media to express their thanks and deep appreciation to a young Muslim, Muhammad ehia, who helped save a number of children trapped in the smoke in church. He ended up in hospital with a broken foot and mild burns.

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To understand the full scale of the events, W finds it necessary to give a brief review of the entire setting of the church and the Coptic congregation.

Even though Imbaba is a very old district which was home to a famous camel market in the 19th century and began as a wellplanned small residential area in the 20th century; it now sprawls over around 8.3 square kilometres densely populated by some 1.5 million people living in one of Egypt’s so-called random districts. Neighbourhoods such as al-Munira, sprung up in the late 1960s and onwards without official planning. Working class people built the “random districts ; private individuals would simply buy a small plot of land and build a house on it without any licence. Other houses would spring close by, starting with ground floor buildings then gradually going up several stories as families grew. No matter that there was no infrastructure in the area; the building activity mushroomed into a sprawling area of small wall-to-wall houses separated by very narrow streets. At around the 1980s and 90s, the government acknowledged the Imbaba areas as residential neighbourhoods and supplied them with infrastructure. The outcome is the current Imbaba, self-sufficient with its crowded houses, busy narrow roads, shops, markets, schools, hospitals, and all elements of urban life including houses of worship. But many direly-needed Christian houses of worship, including Abu-Seifein’s where the recent fire erupted, embodied a famous predicament faced by Copts.

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The plight of the Copts of Imbaba was part of the wider plight of Copts nationwide. For long centuries that go back to the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 640AD, few churches were built. It was next to impossible for Copts to obtain official licence to build or restore a church, leading many Copts to term these times “crisis era . Copts, who direly needed churches in view of their growing congregations and the declining conditions of existing churches, resorted to circumventing the law and building churches without licence or turning houses into defacto unlicensed churches.

It was not till September 2016 that the Law for Building and Restoring Churches was passed in Egypt. The 2016 law stipulates a straightforward, time limited legal procedure to obtaining licence to build or restore a church or affiliated building, and includes provisions for legalising already existing unlicensed churches and Church-affiliated buildings.

nlicensed churches are approved for legality through Cabinet affiliated committee that has been looking into the cases of 3730 unlicensed churches and Church affiliated buildings since September 2017; so far 2401 have been approved.

The church of Abu-Seifein, scene of the recent fire was approved for legality in 2019. But legality can only be final when the following conditions are met: the building should be structurally sound; requirements of civil defence should be in place, there should be no legal disputes on ownership of the land on which the church is built, and any required dues should be paid.

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Abu-Seifein’s was built not as a church, but as one of the numerous houses around. Local Copts, needing a place of worship, bought the small house and turned it into a de-facto church in 2007. The church is a no more than a 300sq.m threestory building: the ground floor houses administrative quarters and a meeting room also used for prayer, the first houses a preschool nursery and rooms for utilities—including the electric generator said to have caused the fire—and the two upper floors house the church. The building is accessed by one door or gate that leads to a narrow stairway no wider than 0.7m. Predictably, several basic requirements of civil defence were starkly missing. Whether or not those in charge of the church were working on rectifying the situation to gain legality is an open question. But the setting explains why there were no casualties among the first-floor nursery children who were speedily rushed out of the building once their teacher heard the noise in the nearby generator room, whereas the many people attending Mass could not leave the church soon enough on the narrow stairway. Some of the victims were full families who had gone to attend Sunday Mass. They suffocated on the smoke which naturally rose up to the higher floors; only one suffered burns and is now in hospital.

Finally, as the church undergoes restoration which is expected to fulfil safety requirements, words posted by Anba Angaelos, Coptic Bishop of London, on his Twitter account aptly sum up the entire tragedy. “At best, the tragic fire at the church of Abu-Seifein is a direct result of a painful time when Christian communities could not build purpose-designed churches, and would have to covertly use other buildings not fit for purpose and lacking the necessary health and safety features and escapes.