(Cairo) A fire started by a short circuit in the middle of a mass in a church in a popular district of Cairo killed 41 people on Sunday, mourning the largest Christian community in the Middle East with 10 to 15 of the 103 million Egyptians.
Posted at 7:23 a.m.
Updated at 9:01 a.m.
“The air conditioner in a classroom on the second floor of the building where the church is located broke down and released a large amount of smoke, which was the main cause of injuries and deaths,” says the ministry of Interior.
The Abu Sifine Church – named after the holy Mercury of Caesarea, revered by the Copts – is wedged into a narrow lane in the working-class district of Imbaba.
One of the fire trucks that were active there on Sunday cluttered almost the entire width of the street in this densely populated area of the left bank of the Nile.
PHOTO KHALED DESOUKI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The church is on the ground floor of a building, separated by just a few meters by a vis-à-vis, surmounted by a cross and also housing a center for social services, noted a photographer from the AFP on the spot.
PHOTO MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY, REUTERS
“Find the Children”
For Reda Ahmed, a resident of the neighborhood and neighbor of the church, “the neighbors have organized themselves to pick up the children”.
But, he told AFP, “those who came back could no longer go back because the fire was too big”. The fire was later brought under control, authorities said.
A little further on, near a car on which broken glass, debris and ashes are piling up, Father Farid Fahmy, officiating in the neighboring church of Mar Yemina, affirms that “the fire started from a generator which got under way after a power outage and suffered an overload”.
The prosecution announced that it had opened an investigation and sent a specialized team to the scene, while the Ministry of Health indicated that it had dispatched dozens of ambulances.
Because very quickly, President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi announced that he had “mobilized all state services so that all measures are taken”.
PHOTO KHALED DESOUKI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The governorate has announced that it will release aid of around 2,500 euros for the families of the deceased and 500 euros for the injured.
The Grand Imam of the highest institution of Sunni Islam, al-Azhar, based in Cairo, offered his condolences to the Coptic Pope Tawadros II in a press release which specifies that “the hospitals of al-Azhar are ready to receive the wounded”.
He was preceded by Mr Sisi who called Tawadros II, an outspoken supporter of the head of state, the first president of Egypt to attend the Coptic Christmas Mass every year as his predecessors dispatched representatives.
Since Tawadros II took over as head of the Christian community in Egypt in 2012, the Coptic Orthodox Church has become more prominent on the political scene.
In the sprawling megalopolis of Cairo, where millions of Egyptians live in informal settlements, accidental fires are not uncommon. More generally, Egypt, endowed with dilapidated and poorly maintained infrastructure, regularly experiences deadly fires in its various provinces.
Another Church Monday
Already on Monday, a church had caught fire in Heliopolis, a wealthy district in the east of Cairo, without causing any deaths or injuries.
In March 2021, at least 20 people died in a fire at a textile factory in the eastern suburbs of Cairo. In 2020, two fires in hospitals claimed the lives of fourteen patients with COVID-19.
Although numerous, the Copts consider themselves kept out of many positions in the public service and deplore very restrictive legislation for the construction of churches and much more liberal for mosques.
The subject is sensitive and Coptic human rights activist Patrick Zaki recently spent 22 months in detention for “spreading false information” over an article exposing violations of Christian rights in Egypt.
Copts have suffered reprisals from Islamists, notably after Mr Sisi’s 2013 overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, with churches, schools and homes set on fire.
Mr. Sissi recently appointed for the first time in history a Coptic judge to head the Constitutional Court.