{"id":34809,"date":"2017-05-26T15:28:04","date_gmt":"2017-05-26T15:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/gunmen-kill-26-coptic-christians-in-cairo\/"},"modified":"2017-05-26T15:28:23","modified_gmt":"2017-05-26T15:28:23","slug":"gunmen-kill-26-coptic-christians-in-cairo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/gunmen-kill-26-coptic-christians-in-cairo\/","title":{"rendered":"Gunmen kill 26 Coptic Christians in Cairo"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Masked gunmen attacked a bus carrying Coptic Christians on a visit to a monastery south of the Egyptian capital on Friday, killing at least 26 people, officials said.}<\/p>\n

The assailants sprayed the bus headed for Saint Samuel monastery in Minya province with gunfire before fleeing, provincial governor Essam el-Bedawi told state television.<\/p>\n

{{Weapons}} <\/p>\n

“They used automatic weapons,” he said.<\/p>\n

Health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed told state television that 26 people were killed and another 25 wounded.<\/p>\n

Bedawi said police were fanning out along the road where the attack took place and had set up checkpoints.<\/p>\n

The shooting followed church bombings in December and April claimed by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group that killed dozens of Copts.<\/p>\n

The jihadists threatened more attacks against the Copts, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 90-million population.<\/p>\n

Suicide bombers with the jihadist group struck a Cairo church on December 11, next to the seat of the Coptic pope, killing 29 people.<\/p>\n

{{Bombers }} <\/p>\n

On April 11, bombers attacked two churches north of Cairo on Palm Sunday, killing 45 people, in the deadliest strike in living memory against the Copts.<\/p>\n

The Copts’ Pope Tawadros II had been leading a service in one of the two churches attacked that day.<\/p>\n

The bombings prompted President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to declare a three-month state of emergency.<\/p>\n

The Egyptian affiliate of IS has also killed several Copts in North Sinai, forcing dozens of families to flee the province in January.<\/p>\n

Friday’s shooting came after a historic visit to Egypt by Roman Catholic Pope Francis to show solidarity with the country’s Christians.<\/p>\n

In his late April trip, Francis visited one of the bombed Coptic churches and condemned violence carried out in the name of God.<\/p>\n

{{Jihadists }} <\/p>\n

Egypt says it has identified those behind the church bombings, saying they were part of an extremist cell based in southern provinces, offering a reward for their capture.<\/p>\n

Sisi has defended the performance of his security forces and accused jihadists of trying to divide Egyptian society by attacking vulnerable minorities.<\/p>\n

However, rights groups accuse the former army chief of crushing even peaceful opposition to his rule.<\/p>\n

A pro-state daily, Al-Bawaba, said on its website that an edition critical of security provisions after the church bombings had been banned from publication.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/figure>\n

Source:AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Masked gunmen attacked a bus carrying Coptic Christians on a visit to a monastery south of the Egyptian capital on Friday, killing at least 26 people, officials said.} The assailants sprayed the bus headed for Saint Samuel monastery in Minya province with gunfire before fleeing, provincial governor Essam el-Bedawi told state television. {{Weapons}} “They used […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[228],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-afp"],"bylines":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","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":71}],"contributors":[{"id":228,"name":"AFP","slug":"afp","description":"Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris. It is the oldest news agency in the world and one of the largest. ","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":71}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34809","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\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34809"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34809"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}