CAIRO: Egypt’s Health Ministry says an explosion at a church in the coastal city of Alexandria has killed 11 people, and wounded at least 35 others.
It appeared to be the second attack targeting Egypt’s Coptic Christians, after a bomb in a church in the Nile Delta town of Tanta killed 26 people and wounded more than 70.
The ministry said the explosion went off at Saint Mark’s Church in Alexandria, where Pope Tawadros II had earlier celebrated Palm Sunday.
No one immediately claimed either attack, but Islamic extremists have repeatedly targeted Egypt’s Christian minority in the past.
A Daesh affiliate based in the Sinai Peninsula claimed an attack on a Cairo church in December that killed around 30 people, and vowed more attacks on Christians.
French President Francois Hollande has expressed solidarity with Egypt following a deadly bombing at a church in the Nile Delta, north of Cairo.
In a written statement after Sunday’s attack, Hollande says “one more time, Egypt is hit by terrorists who want to destroy its unity and its diversity.”
He says France “mobilizes all its forces in association with the Egyptian authorities in the fight against terrorism,” and offers condolences to the families of the victims.
The bomb ripped through a church in the town of Tanta that was packed with Palm Sunday worshippers. Coptic Christians make up 10 percent of Egypt’s population, and have been repeatedly targeted by Islamic extremists.
Daesh group has claimed the bombing of two Egyptian churches in separate cities.
Pope Francis has decried a deadly attack on a Coptic church in Egypt during Palm Sunday celebrations, just weeks before his planned visit to Cairo.
The pontiff expressed his “deep condolences to my brother, Pope Tawadros II, the Coptic church and all of the dear Egyptian nation,” and said he was praying for the dead and wounded in the attack. Word of the bombing came as Francis himself was marking Palm Sunday in St. Peter’s Square.
The pontiff asked God “to convert the hearts of those who spread terror, violence and death, and also the hearts of those who make, and traffic in, weapons.”
The pope’s remarks on the church attack were handed to him on a piece of paper after he remembered the victims of the Stockholm attack Friday night. The bombing killed 25 people and wounded another 71, according to Egyptian officials.
An Egyptian official says a church bombing north of Cairo has killed 21 people and wounded another 38.
Magdi Awad, the head of the provincial ambulance service, confirmed the toll from the bombing of a church in Tanta that was packed with Palm Sunday worshippers.
No one immediately claimed the attack.
Coptic Christians make up 10 percent of Egypt’s population and have repeatedly been targeted by Islamic extremists.
Egypt state media says a bomb has gone off in a church in the Nile Delta, causing casualties.
The MENA news agency attributed the report to unnamed Interior Ministry officials, who provided no further details.
The explosion took place in the town of Tanta as Coptic Christians were marking Palm Sunday. Christians make up around 10 percent of Egypt’s population and have repeatedly been targeted by Islamic extremists.
The Latest: Blast at church in Egypt’s Alexandria kills 11
The Latest: Blast at church in Egypt’s Alexandria kills 11
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
- Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade
DAMASCUS: The UN refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of a camp housing family members of suspected Daesh group militants have left and the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s representative in Syria, said in a statement that the agency “has observed a significant decrease in the number of residents in Al-Hol camp in recent weeks.”
“Syrian authorities have informed UNHCR of their plan to relocate the remaining families to Akhtarin camp in Aleppo Governorate (province) and have requested UNHCR’s support to assist the population in the new camp, which we stand ready to provide,” he said.
He added that UNHCR “will continue to support the return and reintegration of Syrians who have departed Al-Hol, as well as those who remain.”
The statement did not say how residents had left the camp or how many remain. Many families are believed to have escaped either during the chaos when government forces captured the camp from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month or afterward.
There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government and a government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
At its peak after the defeat of IS in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then, the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of IS members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Separately, thousands of accused IS militants who were held in detention centers in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq to stand trial under an agreement with the US
The US military said Friday that it had completed the transfer of more than 5,700 adult male IS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody.
Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with IS — most of them Syrian and Iraqi — were transferred from prisons in Syria. They are now being interrogated in Iraq.
