On Saturday morning, the Egyptian church held a black funeral, including funeral prayers for seven Christians who died after the state organization targeted a bus carrying them.
Hundreds of angry Copts have gathered at the Church of Prince Tadars in the city of Minya to attend the funeral of the victims, which has been surrounded by masked security men and more than a dozen ambulances.
After the prayer, she took six dead bodies in white coffins with white flowers, and shouted "By the Spirit, By Blood, We Need You, Cross".
Seven Copts, including six from one family, were killed Friday in an armed attack on a bus carrying Christians returning from a visit to the monastery of Anba Samuel in Minya (250 km south of Cairo) in the deadliest attack on Copts in more than a year.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi condemned the attack and said in a statement on Twitter: "I deeply grieve the martyrs who fell today with treacherous hands seeking to undermine the cohesive fabric of the homeland."
| (Reuters) |
The Islamic state organization through its Depth News Agency claimed responsibility for the attack, without providing evidence.
This is the second attack of its kind in about a year and a half near the monastery itself, in May 2017 killed 29 people were injured and more than 20 people, in an armed attack on two buses were carrying Christians to the monastery itself, and declared by the state organization at the time.
In the past two years there have been three spectacular bombings: the first in December 2016, and two in two churches in northern Egypt, in which dozens of people were killed and wounded.
The state organization adopted the bombings that affected the three churches. In turn, authorities imposed the state of emergency following the second incident, and have been renewed every three months since April 2017.