{Demands for accountability follow explosion in chapel near St Mark’s Cathedral which left at least 25 worshippers dead.}<\/p>\n
Anger is growing in the Egyptian capital after an explosion went off near the city’s main Coptic Christian cathedral, killing at least 25 worshippers, many of them women and children.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of Christians and Muslims protested outside St Mark’s Cathedral, Cairo, late on Sunday, hours after the blast destroyed a female worshippers’ hall at St Peter’s church, which adjoins the cathedral – the seat of Egypt’s Orthodox Christian Church.<\/p>\n
The church’s floor was covered in pools of congealed blood and debris from shattered windows, with ball bearings, apparently used as shrapnel inside the bomb, burrowing through furniture and peppering the walls.<\/p>\n
The angry crowd chanted slogans against President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and called for the dismissal of Magdy Abdel Ghaffar, the interior minister, whom they blamed for the security failure.<\/p>\n
“The Ministry of Interior cannot protect our churches. It is time for us to protect ourselves,” one Coptic protester standing at the church’s metal gate said.<\/p>\n
‘No one came out safe’<\/p>\n
Another Coptic protester said that security at the church was known to be lax, with guards reportedly “playing on the internet all day long.<\/p>\n
“If we had dogs, it could have been better. Not a single one came out safe, not one. Shame on the Ministry of Interior and the police,” said the protester.<\/p>\n
Others chanted: “The people demand the fall of the regime”, the rallying cry of the 2011 uprising that helped end Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.<\/p>\n
Anger is growing in the Egyptian capital after an explosion went off near the city’s main Coptic Christian cathedral, killing at least 25 worshippers, many of them women and children.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of Christians and Muslims protested outside St Mark’s Cathedral, Cairo, late on Sunday, hours after the blast destroyed a female worshippers’ hall at St Peter’s church, which adjoins the cathedral – the seat of Egypt’s Orthodox Christian Church.<\/p>\n
The church’s floor was covered in pools of congealed blood and debris from shattered windows, with ball bearings, apparently used as shrapnel inside the bomb, burrowing through furniture and peppering the walls.<\/p>\n
The angry crowd chanted slogans against President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and called for the dismissal of Magdy Abdel Ghaffar, the interior minister, whom they blamed for the security failure.<\/p>\n
“The Ministry of Interior cannot protect our churches. It is time for us to protect ourselves,” one Coptic protester standing at the church’s metal gate said.<\/p>\n
‘No one came out safe’<\/p>\n
Another Coptic protester said that security at the church was known to be lax, with guards reportedly “playing on the internet all day long.<\/p>\n
“If we had dogs, it could have been better. Not a single one came out safe, not one. Shame on the Ministry of Interior and the police,” said the protester.<\/p>\n
Others chanted: “The people demand the fall of the regime”, the rallying cry of the 2011 uprising that helped end Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Demands for accountability follow explosion in chapel near St Mark’s Cathedral which left at least 25 worshippers dead.} Anger is growing in the Egyptian capital after an explosion went off near the city’s main Coptic Christian cathedral, killing at least 25 worshippers, many of them women and children. Hundreds of Christians and Muslims protested outside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31005\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31005"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31005"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}