28 Egyptian Christians Killed in Bus Attack on Friday

In April, at least 45 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in two separate suicide bomb attacks

One of the buses targeted by militants. Photo from video/Reuters.

(Minya Province, EGYPT/Alwaght) - Masked gunmen attacked two buses and a truck carrying Coptic Christians in Egypt on Friday, killing at least than 28 people and wounding dozens more. Egyptian officials say children were among the dead. The groups were travelling to the Saint Samuel Monastery in the Minya province, about 220km south of Cairo.

The attackers arrived in three pick-up trucks and opened fire on the vehicles carrying the Christians before fleeing from the scene, with Security forces in pursuit. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

"They used automatic weapons," said Essam el-Bedawi, Governor of Minya.

The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is an Oriental Orthodox Christian church with 18–22 million members worldwide. The Egyptian Church is more than 1,900 years old, believed to be the oldest Christian church in the world. It was founded by St Mark, an apostle and evangelist, in the middle of the 1st century, approximately AD 42, according to accepted tradition.

Egypt's Christian minority, which makes up about 10 percent of the country's population, has repeatedly been targeted by armed groups.

Following the attack, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for a meeting with security officials before an apparent retaliatory strike against training camps in Libya Friday afternoon. Egyptian fighter jets directed strikes at camps which Cairo says have been training militants responsible for killing the Christians earlier in the day.

In April, at least 45 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in two separate suicide bomb attacks on churches in the cities of Tanta and Alexandria during Palm Sunday ceremonies.

The April attacks were claimed by ISIS terrorist groups which is active in Egypt especially in the Sinai Peninsula region.

Egypt has had an imposed nationwide three-month state of emergency after the April bombings, with the option to extend for another three months dependent on a parliament vote.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement has joined the international community in condemning the attack on innocent Christians in Minya, terming the incident a sinful crime.

In a statement, Hezbollah, that is fighting terrorists in Syria, said that this crime is added to the record of the murderous gangs whose acts are devoid of the human sense, violate the sanctity of the human soul that God has guaranteed.

Hezbollah added that they were painfully grieved by the human losses, calling for a serious and sincere stand in face of terrorism which uses religion to overlay its crimes and urged for a decisive fight against the terrorists and their ideological and financial supporters.

Source: Alwaght; other sources