Fire at full Coptic church kills 41 in Cairo, officials say
CAIRO — A fire ripped through a packed Coptic Orthodox church during morning services in Egypt’s capital Sunday, quickly filling it with thick black smoke and killing 41 worshippers, including at least 15 children.
Several congregants jumped from upper floors of the Martyr Abu Sefein church to try to escape the flames, witnesses said.
“Suffocation, suffocation, all of them dead,” said a distraught witness, who only gave a partial name, Abu Bishoy.
Sixteen people were injured, including four policemen involved in the rescue effort.
The cause of the blaze at the church in the working-class neighborhood of Imbaba was not known. An initial investigation pointed to an electrical short-circuit, according to a police statement.
Weeping families waited outside for word on relatives still inside the church and at nearby hospitals where the victims were taken. Footage from the scene circulated online showed burned furniture, including wooden tables and chairs.
Firefighters were seen putting out the blaze while others carried victims to ambulances.
Witnesses said there were many children inside the four-story building when the fire broke out.
“There are children, we didn’t know how to get to them,” Abu Bishoy said. “And we don’t know whose son this is, or whose daughter that is. Is this possible?”
Atotal of 15 children were killed in the fire, according to Copts United, a news website focusing on Christian news.
A list of victims obtained by The Associated Press said 20 bodies, including 10 children, were taken to the Imbaba public hospital. The church bishop, Abdul Masih Bakhit, was also among the dead at the hospital morgue.
Twenty-one bodies were taken to other hospitals.
By late afternoon, caskets carrying the dead were transferred in ambulances for pre-burial prayers at two churches in the nearby Waraq neighborhood, as weeping womenlined their path.
Witness Emad Hanna said the church includes two places used as a day care and that a church worker managed to get some children out.
“We went upstairs and found people dead. And we started to see from outside that the smoke was getting bigger, and people want to jump from the upper floor,” Hanna said.
“We found the children,” some dead, some alive, he said.
The country’s health minister blamed the smoke and a stampede as people attempted to flee the fire for causing the fatalities.
It was one of the worst fire tragedies in Egypt in recent years. In March 2021, a fire at a garment factory near Cairo killed 20 people and injured 24.
The church is in a narrow street in one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Cairo. Sunday is the first working day of the week.
President Abdel Fattah el-sissi spoke by phone with Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II to offer his condolences, the president’s office said.