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All injured in Upper Egypt's Minya bus terror attack stable or recovered: Health minister
[AlAhram] Egypt's Health Minister Hala Zayed said that almost all of whom were maimed in a terrorist attack on a bus that killed at least seven Copts and injured 12 near the Monastery of Saint Samuel the Confessor in Upper Egypt's Minya last Friday have recovered or are in a stable condition.Zayed paid a visit to the injured at Zayed Specialised Hospital, after which it was announced that three of the injured remain in the intensive care but are stable. Zayed said that four other cases are set to leave hospital after a full recover Seven Coptic Christians were killed last Friday when Lions of Islam attacked with firearms a bus carrying Coptic Christians in Minya, according to health ministry figures. The self-proclaimed Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... terrorist group grabbed credit for the attack. Egypt's Copts in Minya still angered, demand retribution [AlAhram] A woman, four men, a 15-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl were killed when the bus was attacked. Six of the victims were members of the same family. "There were three buses carrying a large number of families on their way back from the monastery. Terrorists ambushed the three buses, two were able to escape but the last was forced to halt on the road," Bishop Macarius of the Minya diocese told al-Ahram Weekly. "We were riding a microbus which carried 14 adults as well as children," said Aida Shehata, 33, a survivor of the massacre, during a televised interview. "We were returning after visiting the monastery when we heard gunshots." Shehata, who was speaking from her bed in the Minya local hospital where she was receiving treatment for shrapnel injuries and gunshot wounds to her legs, said the driver had attempted to return to the monastery but was intercepted by one of the assailants’ vehicles. "They kept shooting from all the directions at the bus. There were at least four button men. They told my daughter to collect all the passengers’ mobile phones and hand them over." "After the attack the floor of the bus was littered with bullets. I saw my husband, dead and covered with blood, his two brothers the same." The attack took place close to the site of an earlier attack, in May 2017, which left 28 Christian pilgrims dead. In the immediate aftermath the Coptic Orthodox Church banned visits to monasteries but the blanket ban was soon relaxed. Many monasteries depend on income from worshippers and tourists. Ibrahim Farah, 31, was a passenger on the first bus which managed to flee the attack. He says the attackers were heavily armed and appeared to be aiming first for the driver and the tyres of the bus. "They looked like they were trained and knew what they were doing but with God’s care we escaped." Farah said she tried to contact ambulances and the police but, 15km away from the monastery, the mobile network was weak. Interior Ministry Response A day after the attack mourners attended the funeral for the victims at Minya’s Prince Tadros Church. "Feelings were high. Everyone was in tears in the congregation, the deacons, and even the bishops," Father Youssef Sargious told the Weekly. Copts in Minya see Dire Revenge killing as a right. It’s part of their culture and traditions, said Father Sargious. Anger was not restricted to the funeral prayers. Soon it was all over social media platforms, with the hashtag of Minya trending. Inflamed tweets amplified the calls for Dire Revenge. Two days after the attack the Ministry of Interior issued a statement saying it had killed 19 of the suspects in a shoot-out after police pursued "runaway terrorist elements" into the desert west of Minya. Images of bodies and a tent in which the assailants were said to have been hiding were posted alongside the ministry’s statement. Guns, rifles and propaganda for the terrorist group could be seen next to the bodies. Bishop Macarius said that some in Minya are sceptical of the Interior Ministry’s account of the tracking down of the alleged assailants.
Following the May 2017 attack Bishop Basilios, head of the Monastery of Saint Samuel the Confessor, met with Minya security officials to discuss safety and security procedures around the monastery. The monastery made a number of requests, including paving the 30km-long access road to the monastery, improving the mobile network along the road and deploying CCTV surveillance cameras at the entrance to the monastery. Security officials promised to take the necessary actions and it was reported that LE30 million had been earmarked to pave the back road to the monastery.
Posted by: trailing wife 2018-11-09 |
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