WATANI International
2 November 2011
A fire which erupted yesterday in a camping site outside the Mar-Girgis (St George) Monastery near the village of Ruzaiqat in Luxor, Upper Egypt, took one hour to extinguish.
The monastery was preparing for the annual mulid—a mulid is a folk celebration held to honour a saint, usually held alongside the church’s celebration of the saint’s day—which runs from 11 to 16 November and is honoured by almost a million ‘pilgrims’ every year.
To accommodate the visitors, the monastery sets up tents over huge grounds outside its walls. The fire erupted in some 170 tents. The locals caught five Muslim suspects, three of them underage young men, and handed them to the authorities.
Bishop of Shubral-Kheima Anba Morqos who is also in charge of the mulid told Watani that the mulid is being secured by the official security forces, and that the fire incident will probably not lead to its annulment.
According to rights activist Ra’fat Samir, deputy head to the Egyptian Human Rights Union, it would be more appropriate to postpone this year’s mulid, given the rampant security lapse and not infrequent incidents of road banditry. Mr Samir said that matches and inflammable materials were found in the possession of two of the suspects who were caught.