At least 25 worshippers, mostly women and children, were killed and nearly 50 injured after a powerful blast ripped through a church adjacent to Egypt’s main Coptic Christian cathedral here during a Sunday mass, the deadliest attack against the minority community in recent times.
The explosion took place inside St Peter’s Church attached to St Mark’s Cathedral, the seat of the Coptic pope who heads Egypt’s Christian minority, in Abbassyia district of central Cairo at around 10:00 am when the Sunday mass was on, Health Minister Ahmed Emad said.
In the attack, 25 people, mostly women and children, were killed while 49 others injured, the Minister said. The explosive device containing about 12 kg of TNT exploded on the women’s side of the cathedral, security officials said.
A state-run news agency reported that the bomb was lobbed inside the church, though some reports cited witnesses saying it was planted inside the church itself by a woman during the prayer time.
The reason of the large number of victims was because the blast took during Christian pray time and there were a large number of people inside the cathedral, a statement by the Health Ministry said.
Services were being held in St Peter’s church on Sunday morning, while St Mark’s Cathedral was being renovated.
St Mark’s Cathedral is the seat of Egypt’s Orthodox Christian church and is home to the office of its spiritual leader, Pope Tawadros II. The head of Al-Azhar, Egypt’s top Sunni authority, condemned the blast as “a great crime” against all Egyptians.
“The vile terrorist explosion” was “a great crime against all Egyptians”, Al-Azhar’s grand imam, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, said in a statement.
The number of casualties may rise, the officials said, adding that the injured have been transferred to Dar El-Shefaa and Ain Shams University Hospital.
Security forces are screening the area and have blocked the main roads surrounding the cathedral.
This is the third explosion in the country this week. On Friday, a blast killed six policemen and injured three others in Giza’s Haram district and another occurred in Kafr El-Sheikh international road, killing one civilian and injuring three policemen.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for today’s attack, though Jihadists in Sinai often target Christians as well as Muslims they accuse of working with the Government.