Copts marking Palm Sunday in Jerusalem condemn Egypt attack

Record ID: 572458

  • Title: Copts marking Palm Sunday in Jerusalem condemn Egypt attack
  • Date: 9th April 2017
  • Summary: JERUSALEM (APRIL 9, 2017) (REUTERS) ISRAELI SECURITY FORCES AHEAD OF PALM SUNDAY PROCESSION AT MOUNT OF OLIVES CHRISTIANS WALKING (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) COPTIC PILGRIM FROM EGYPT, AFAF BADIE, SAYING: "(These are) very disturbing incidents and we are very sad. What benefit whoever done it got from it? I do not know what to say. Where is the government? What is happening to us is horrible." PEOPLE AHEAD OF PALM SUNDAY PROCESSION (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) COPTIC PILGRIM FROM EGYPT, AFAF BADIE, SAYING: "We want to feel safe, we have to stand up for this, and when someone does something like that, they should not say he is crazy or insane, or to put it under any name. We need the government to stand with the Christians, because what is happening is horrible." CROSS (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) COPTIC PILGRIM FROM EGYPT, MICHAEL FATHI, SAYING: "These are terrorist attacks, aiming to target the unity of the Egyptian people, and to break the Egyptians, and this will never happen. We know that terrorism exists everywhere, and that there should be an international unity to end the terrorism." MEN STANDING BY CROSS (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) COPTIC PILGRIM FROM EGYPT, ADEL GERGIS, SAYING: "Whatever happens, we are brothers. These attacks are not targeting Christians, it is aiming to break the Egyptian entity. The Egyptian entity will not be broken, never, not under any situation. We are one, and will live like one." SIGN READING IN HEBREW, ARABIC AND ENGLISH "MOUNT OF OLIVES" ELDERLY WORSHIPPER HOLDING CANDLES WORSHIPPERS/KIDS HOLDING PALM BRANCHES
  • Embargoed: 23rd April 2017 13:29
  • Keywords: Copts Egypt Violence PalmSunday
  • Location: JERUSALEM
  • City: JERUSALEM
  • Country: Egypt
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace
  • Reuters ID: LVA0016BOGCP3
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Christians from the Coptic community who marked Palm Sunday (April 9) in Jerusalem voiced anger and concern over latest lethal attacks on their denomination's churches in Egypt.
    At least 36 people were killed and more than 100 injured in bomb attacks on two Coptic churches on Palm Sunday, in the latest assault on a religious minority increasingly targeted by Islamist militants.
    There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, which come a week before Coptic Easter and in the same month that Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Egypt.
    The first bombing, in Tanta, a Nile Delta city less than 100 kilometres outside Cairo, killed at least 25 and injured at least 78, Egypt's Ministry of Health said.
    The second, carried out just a few hours later by a suicide bomber in Alexandria, hit the historic seat of the Coptic Pope, killing 11, including three police officers, and injuring 35, the ministry added.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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