GIZA, Egypt – Worshipers had gathered on a hot, bright Sunday morning to attend Mass in a small room at a Coptic Orthodox church in Cairo when they heard an explosion. great. Power had been lost before, and the generator and power outlet were running at the same time – a fatal miscalculation.
Witnesses said that shortly after power came on, a generator exploded, pulling an air conditioner unit, causing a fire that tore through the four-story building housing the Abu Sefein church in Giza. A government statement said only that the fire broke out in an air conditioning unit.
The Department of Health said the fire resulted in a stampede on worshipers. Some ran to the window. Rescuers pulled some people onto the roof. Footage shared on social media and verified by The New York Times shows cultists scream for help when thick smoke poured from the building, with other people on the roof of the church as the flames spread around them.
By the end of the day, at least 41 bodies had been counted, including some children and the bishop of the church. At least a dozen others were injured. Most of the deaths and injuries were caused by smoke inhalation and trampling, The Egyptian Ministry of Health said:.
The fire further exacerbated the trauma of the despised Coptic Christian minority and raised questions in a country long criticized for lax safety standards and poor oversight. Those factors appeared big on Sunday even as Egypt’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that a preliminary investigation suggested the fire may have been caused by a malfunction of an air-conditioning unit on the second floor of the building, which also houses classrooms and a nursery.
The country’s chief prosecutor, Hamada el-Sawy, said he was order an investigation into the fire.
Some residents of Imbaba, the densely populated area where the church is located, criticized the government’s response time and emergency services. A woman said in the scene Al Jazeera shared that the crews did not arrive for two and a half hours. Footage from outside one of the hospitals where patients are being treated shows an angry mob gathering.
But others said emergency responders arrived within 15 minutes and quickly put out the fire. And the new health minister, Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, defended the officials’ emergency response, saying the teams arrived within minutes. The Interior Ministry later said that the fire was under control.
Among the dead was the church’s bishop, Abdul Masih Bakhit, according to Youssef Ibrahim, 19, who lived next door to the church building. He said he was on his way to work when explosions hit the neighborhood. Shocked, he ran to the building.
“A man was half sticking out the window, gasping for air,” he said. “We hugged blankets so when he fell we would catch him. He is an old man. Suddenly, he got under the blanket, but fell to the ground. He’s so heavy. He died instantly.”
Mr. Ibrahim said he entered the building and helped carry the bodies of several other victims, including children in the nursery.
“I went up to the second floor, looking for water to put out the fire,” he said. “I broke down the door of a room, and behind it were a bunch of kids, all unconscious. I do not know what to do; I didn’t believe. That’s when a friend of mine came, and together we brought the bodies of the children downstairs, one by one.”
He said he went back to the top floor to check if anyone else was there.
“On the top floor, there was a chair that was completely burned down,” he recalls, his voice lost from shouting and inhaling smoke. “I moved the chair, and I found someone. That’s the bishop. “
Father Mikhael Guirguis, deputy leader of the Archdiocese of North Giza, told a church-affiliated television station that he had also seen the bodies of several children after the fire.
Seif Ibrahim, 66, a carpenter and father of Youssef Ibrahim, said that rescuers like his son jumped from other rooftops to the top of the church building, but the door to the roof was locked.
“Some climb onto the roof to get people from the windows,” he said outside the family home. “People from buildings around the church poured water from buckets into the windows.”
“My heart broke when I watched them take the bodies of the children out,” he said,
Egypt has been plagued in recent years by fires that have turned into mass casualty events.
In 2002, At least 370 people died when the fire broke out on an overnight train speeding through a large part of upper Egypt as the fire spread from car to carriage. 2005At least 31 people died in a fire at a state-owned theater in the city of Beni Suef after a candle fell during the production of “Hamlet”.
In 2008, one gutted fire The Upper House of the Egyptian Parliament, injuring at least 10 people. A fire at a garment factory near Cairo killed at least 20 people in March 2021. And two separates hospital fire – in 2020 and 2021 – kills a total of nine coronavirus patients in the cities of Alexandria and Giza
For decades, Christians in Egypt have complained that government restrictions on building, renovating and repairing churches are part of a larger form of discrimination that makes they fell into second-class citizenship and damaged many of their houses of worship. Laws dating back to 1934 forbid churches from being built near schools and government buildings, and building permits have traditionally been granted only by presidential decree.
According to a 2018 report by the Project for Middle East Democracy, the government viewed church projects as a potential security issue that needed to be managed closely, in part because of the country’s history of violent clashes. sectarian levels, especially in rural and poor areas. The research institute is based in the United States.
As a result, thousands of churches have been built without official permission, often in serious violation of basic fire safety standards. According to Mr. Ibrahim, who is older than Mr. Ibrahim, the building that caught fire on Sunday was turned into a church without a permit. He said it took several years for the church to be licensed.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi enacted a law in 2016 to amend the regulations. Although the law was hailed at the time as an important first step to ending decades of discrimination, dysfunction and bureaucracy diminished its effectiveness.
Coptic Christians make up about 10% of Egypt’s 100 million population, the majority being Sunni Muslims. The minority has been the target of widespread discrimination and violent attacks, including the Islamic State branch in Egypt’s Sinai province.
Following Sunday’s fire, Mr. el-Sisi offered his condolences to the head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Tawadros II, according to a statement. statement from the office of the president.
“I have directed all relevant state agencies and organizations to take all necessary measures,” said Mr. el-Sisi. say on Twitter.
The government announced that the families of those who died in the fire will receive 100,000 Egyptian pounds (about 5,223), and those injured will receive 20,000 Egyptian pounds (about 1,004 USD), according to statement by the country’s cabinet.
On Sunday, relatives took the victims’ bodies from hospitals to a church in the Warraq neighborhood and held a funeral mass.
At the scene of the fire, the small alley where the church was located was blocked off by security forces. The second floor where the fire is said to have started is floor-to-ceiling black. Workers clean up damaged furniture.
At dusk, trucks laden with logs and other building materials raced into the alley. An army officer is giving instructions. It was reported that the president ordered the immediate restoration of the burned church.
An iron cross, the only indication that the building contained a church, rests on the roof above the soot-stained walls.
Nada Rashwan report from Cairo, Euan ward from London, Liam Stack from New York and Yonette Joseph from Mexico City.
