At least seven Christians killed in bus attack in Egypt

At least seven Christians have been killed and nine injured in an attack on a bus convoy in Minya today. Armed terrorists opened fire on two buses as they were leaving Saint Samuel’s monastery.

At least seven Christians have been killed and nine injured in an attack on a bus convoy in Minya today. Armed terrorists opened fire on two buses as they were leaving Saint Samuel’s monastery.

There was a larger bus and a smaller bus in the convoy. Fr. Abanoub Shehata, a priest in Maghagha diocese, Minya, says, “The big bus belonged to a church in Sohag. The driver managed to escape the scene and no one in that bus got hurt. The second, smaller bus, came from a village in Minya and did not manage to escape. The terrorist stopped the bus and opened fire on the passengers.“ 

This is the same place where a bus attack took place on 26 May 2017, killing 28 Christians. Local Christians are angry that an attack could take place in same place twice. “Why were they not protected?” asks Emad Nasif, a deacon in a church in Minya. “There seems to be an indifference to the safety of the Christian minority.”

“Heaven received yet another group of martyrs,” says Hanaa Youssef Mikhael, who lost her husband Ayad Habib Tawadros in the Minya bus attack in May 2017, and is mother of two survivors of the attack, teenagers Marco and Mina. She cries,“I am very sad about what happened. And I am startled. How is it possible that this happened again?”

Please pray to the God of all comfort, that He will comfort the bereaved, the injured, and all who are fearful in Egypt today. Pray for healing for the injured. Pray for protection over our Egyptian brothers and sisters.