ICC Note: The stories and testimonies of Egyptian church members of the December 11 bombing in Cairo. Families tell stories of chaos and terror as the ceiling over the women’s and children’s seating section in St. Marks Cathedral. Last week the death toll rose again as a 10 year-old girl died of her injuries.

12/26/2016 Egypt (WWM): Eyewitnesses have described the moment a bomb went off in their Cairo church, killing more than 20 women and children, and injuring at least 50 others.

The death toll from the attack at St Peter and St Paul Coptic Orthodox church rose to 26 this week after ten-year-old Maggy Moemen died of the injuries she sustained in the incident nine days earlier. One Coptic man died, as well as the suicide bomber, who is believed to have worn a suicide vest. Some 14 people remain in a critical condition.

Relatives of those who died, who witnessed the explosion, spoke of terrifying and chaotic scenes as a wall of the church collapsed on worshippers, and of desperate efforts to find loved ones amid the rubble and shattered pews.

The bomb went off on the side of the church where women and children sat, separately from the men. The Coptic man who died, Nabil Habib, was a guard at the church.

This church CCTV shows a man in a long coat walking towards the church and a guard, Nabil Habib, running after him, before the side of the building is reduced to rubble

…

[Full Story]