By Nader Shoukry – Watani –
Three vehicles carrying Copts heading to the monastery of Anba Samuel al-Muetarrif (St Samuel the Confessor) were attacked by masked men who opened fire on the vehicles and left some 30 Copts dead. Eyewitnesses said the vehicles were moving on the unpaved desert path leading up to the monastery in Mount Qalamoun, northwest Minya and close to 180km south of Cairo, when armed, masked men descended on them from the close-by Abu-Tartour plateau overlooking the path.
The masked men carried automatic weapons; they opened heavy fire, and fled back up the plateau. Amid the carnage they strewed fliers into the buses, saying: “A fast accepted [by Allah], and all sins forgiven”. The phrase is a famous quote used by Muslims during their holy month of Ramadan, the month of fasting, which begins tomorrow. This means that the attackers were obviously Islamists.
The three vehicles were a bus from the Beni Sweif town of al-Fashn (some 100km south of Cairo) which carried families going to the monastery, a microbus carrying children from the church of the Holy Virgin in Maghagha, Minya; and a half-truck that carried 16 Coptic labourers from the Minya village of Deir al-Garanos. All but three of the children died.
Ambulances have been moving the injured, who according to the Health Ministry number 25, to hospitals in Minya, Beni Sweif, and Cairo. Many of the injured are in critical condition, and it is expected that number of the dead would rise. The police are investigating the incident.
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Photo: Three kids who survived the attack
