MINYA/EGYPT – On Friday May 26, 2017, more than 20 Coptic Christians were killed and dozens wounded in a bus attack in the Minya Province in Egypt.
The Copts convoy, which was travelling to hold prayers at the St. Samuel monastery, around 140 miles south of Cairo, was stopped and came under fire by a group of gunmen.
The Coptic Church in Egypt has been the target of a string of attacks on its community. In December 2016, a bomb attack committed by ISIS claimed the lives of 29 Coptic Christians and wounded 47 others, who were gathered for Sunday Mass in the Orthodox Church of St. Peter and St. Paul.
During Palm Sunday celebration last April, two bombings struck two Cairo churches, one in the church of Mar Girgis (St. George) in Tanta, 100 km from Cairo, the other in front of the Church of Saint Mark in Alexandria, which took the lives of at least 43 worshipers and wounding 126 people.
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem strongly condemns yet another attack on the Coptic community in Egypt and expresses its deepest condolences, together with the Churches of Holy Land, for the families’ victims.
Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem
