- Title: EGYPT: Thousands attend funeral for Mansoura blast dead
- Date: 24th December 2013
- Summary: MANSOURA, EGYPT (DECEMBER 24, 2013) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF LARGE CROWDS AT MASS FUNERAL POSTER OF EGYPT'S ARMY CHIEF, ABDEL FATTAH AL-SISI, AND NATIONAL FLAGS SEEN AMID CROWD WOMAN CRYING VARIOUS OF FUNERAL PROCESSION COFFIN BEING LOWERED FROM THE TOP OF A VEHICLE SECURITY FORCES AT PROCESSION COFFIN BEING BROUGHT TO VEHICLE COFFIN BEING LOWERED FROM VEHICLE PEOPLE CHANTING, PUNCHING FISTS IN THE AIR PEOPLE WATCHING
- Embargoed: 8th January 2014 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Egypt
- City:
- Country: Egypt
- Topics: Crime
- Reuters ID: LVA4AZ1270YEPETR6GR6UQ5F5VAR
- Aspect Ratio:
- Story Text: Thousands of Egyptians attended a mass funeral on Tuesday (December 24) for the victims of a bomb blast overnight in which 15 people were killed.
At least 12 policemen were killed in the attack, one of the deadliest since the army deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July.
Security officials said the overnight blast in the city of Mansoura, north of Cairo, had also wounded about 140 people.
The army-backed government vowed to fight "black terrorism".
The blast prompted a cabinet statement declaring Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, though officials did not directly accuse the group of staging the attack.
The Brotherhood, which is already outlawed, condemned the bombing as "an attack on the unity of the Egyptian people".
Hundreds of angry people in Mansoura stormed and torched buildings and shops they suspected to be owned by Brotherhood members, witnesses and state media said.
The blast underlined the risk of militancy moving to the densely populated Nile Valley from the Sinai Peninsula, where attacks have killed some 200 soldiers and police since July.
The army said a car bomb had been used.
Egypt has endured the bloodiest internal strife in its modern history since the army removed Mursi, the nation's first freely elected leader, on July 3 after big protests against him.
The security forces have killed hundreds of his supporters as part of a campaign to repress his Muslim Brotherhood, until then Egypt's most powerful political and religious organisation, while lethal attacks on the security forces have proliferated. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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