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A6 WORLD NEWS
Monday 15 august 2022

Fire at Cairo Coptic church kills 41, including 15 children

By SAMY MAGDY tals, officials said.
Associated Press President Abdel Fattah el-
CAIRO (AP) — A fire ripped Sissi spoke by phone with
through a packed Coptic Coptic Christian Pope
Orthodox church during Tawadros II to offer his con-
morning services in Egypt’s dolences, the president’s
capital on Sunday, quickly office said. Sheikh Ahmed
filling it with thick black al-Tayeb, Al-Azhar’s Grand
smoke and killing 41 wor- Imam, also offered condo-
shippers, including at least lences to the head of the
15 children. Coptic church.
Several trapped congre- Abdel-Ghafar, the health
gants jumped from upper minister, said in a statement
floors of the Martyr Abu Se- that two of the injured were
fein church to try to escape discharged from a hospital
the intense flames, witness- while the others were still
es said. “Suffocation, suffo- being treated.
cation, all of them dead,” The Interior Ministry said it
said a distraught witness, received a report of the fire
who only gave a partial at 9 a.m. local time, and
name, Abu Bishoy. Emergency personnel work at the site of a fire at the Abu Sefein church that has killed over 40 first responders found that
Sixteen people were in- people and injured at least 14 others, in the densely populated neighborhood of Imbaba, Cairo the blaze had broken out
jured, including four police- Egypt, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022. in an air conditioner on the
men involved in the rescue Associated Press building’s second floor.
effort. didn’t know how to get to mother, grandmother and narrow street in one of the The ministry, which over-
The cause of the blaze at them,” said Abu Bishoy. an aunt were among those most densely populated sees police and firefighters,
the church in the working- “And we don’t know whose killed. neighborhoods in Cairo. blamed an electrical short-
class neighborhood of Im- son this is, or whose daugh- Witness Emad Hanna said Sunday is the first working circuit for the fire, which
baba was not immediately ter that is. Is this possible?” a church worker managed day of the week, and traf- produced huge amounts
known. An initial investiga- A total of 15 children were to get some children out of fic jams clog the streets in of smoke. Meanwhile, the
tion pointed to an electri- killed in the fire, according the church day care facili- Imbama and surrounding country’s chief prosecutor,
cal short-circuit, according to Copts United, a news ties. areas in the morning. Hamada el-Sawy, ordered
to a police statement. website focusing on Chris- “We went upstairs and Some relatives criticized an investigation and a
Weeping families waited tian news. found people dead. And what they said were delays team of prosecutors were
outside for word about A list of victims obtained by we started to see from out- in the arrival of ambulanc- dispatched to the church.
relatives who were inside The Associated Press said side that the smoke was es and firefighters. “They He said most victims died
the church and at nearby 20 bodies, including 10 chil- getting bigger, and people came after people died. … of smoke inhalation.
hospitals where the victims dren, were taken to the Im- want to jump from the up- They came after the church By Sunday afternoon,
were taken. Footage from baba public hospital. Three per floor,” Hanna said. burned down,” shouted emergency services said
the scene circulated online were siblings, twins aged “We found the children,” one woman standing out- they managed to put out
showed burned furniture, 5 and a 3-year-old, it said. some dead, some alive, he side the smoldering church. the blaze and the prime
including wooden tables The church bishop, Ab- added. Health Minister Khaled Ab- minister and other senior
and chairs. Firefighters dul Masih Bakhit, was also The country’s health minis- del-Ghafar countered that government officials ar-
were seen putting out the among the dead at the ter blamed the smoke and the first ambulance arrived rived to inspect the site.
blaze while others carried hospital morgue. a stampede as people at- at the site two minutes after Premier Mustafa Madbouly
victims to ambulances. Twenty-one bodies were tempted to flee the fire the fire was reported. said surviving victims and
Witnesses said there were taken to other hospitals. for causing the fatalities. Fifteen firefighting vehicles families of the dead would
many children inside the Mousa Ibrahim, a spokes- It was one of the worst fire were dispatched to the receive payments as com-
four-story building, which man for the Coptic Ortho- tragedies in Egypt in recent scene to put out the flames pensation and that the
had two day care facilities. dox Church, told the AP years. while ambulances ferried government would rebuild
“There are children, we that 5-year-old triplets, their The church is located in a casualties to nearby hospi- the church.q

German minister decries ecological

catastrophe in Oder River

minister said the mass die- to the border between Po- same time, we are testing
off of fish in the Oder River is land and Germany before fish. No mercury or other
an ecological catastrophe flowing into the Baltic Sea. heavy metals have been
and it isn’t clear yet how Ten tons of dead fish were found in them,” she said.
long it will take the river to removed from it last week, She said some Oder water
recover. but Mokswa said the cause samples were being sent to
Steffi Lemke spoke Sun- of the mass die-off still has foreign laboratories to be
day at a news conference not yet been determined. tested for about 300 sub-
alongside her Polish coun- “So far, at least 150 sam- stances.
Volunteers recover dead fish from the water of the German- terpart, Anna Moskwa, af- ples of water from the Oder Both ministers said they
Polish border river Oder in Lebus, eastern Germanny, Saturday, ter a meeting in Szczecin, River have been tested. were focused now on do-
Aug. 13, 2022.
Associated Press a Polish city on the Oder None of the studies have ing what they can to limit
River. confirmed the presence the damage to the river’s
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Germany’s environment The Oder runs from Czechia of toxic substances. At the ecosystem.q