Warning to holidaymakers after ten are killed in terrorist attack in Egypt
This week in 1 9 9 7, Br i tish holidaymakers were told that their security could not be guaranteed in Egypt following a terrorist attack in a tourist area in which ten people were killed.
The warning was issued by the Foreign Office after a number of Britons were caught up in a gun and bomb assault on a tourist bus outside the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo, in which 19 were also injured. Seven of those who died were German tourists.
The attack happened when gunmen, dressed in dark business suits to enable them to merge with office workers in the area, opened fire on the bus and hurled two bombs, one underneath the vehicle and a second at the bus itself.
At least 31 tourists were inside the bus and others were boarding, near the museum, which houses one of the world’s greatest collections of ancient Egyptian treasures.
Also this week in 1997, the Prince of Wales spoke proudly about the courage of his two sons, William and Harry, for the way they had faced up to the loss of their mother.
Speaking in Manchester at his first public engagement since the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, he praised the young princes who were watched by millions as they walked solemnly behind their mother’s coffin.
He said: “They have been quite remarkable and I think they have handled an extraordinarily difficult time, as I’m sure you can imagine, with quite enormous courage and the greatest possible dignity.”
In other news, a Spanish tourist who laughed when he was arrested for stealing tributes to Diana, Princess of Wales, outside Kensington Palace, was fined £1000 by magistrates.
Guillermo Hernandez-Setien pleaded guilty to stealing a teddy bear and a basked of flowers belonging to the estate of the late princess.
In sport, a Faustino Asprilla hat-trick destroyed a multimillion-pound Barcelona side at St James’ Park as Kenny Dalglish’s Newcastle United beat the Catalans 3-2 in the Champions League.