It was the eve of the New Year 2011. Copts, who have taken to spend New Year Eve in church singing praises and attending service, were flocking to their churches. The mood was celebratory; men, women and children went in groups of family and friends, wearing festive garments, and promising to meet after service for a good, hearty meal.
It was the eve of the New Year 2011. Copts, who have taken to spend New Year Eve in church singing praises and attending service, were flocking to their churches. The mood was celebratory; men, women and children went in groups of family and friends, wearing festive garments, and promising to meet after service for a good, hearty meal.
It was not any different in Alexandria’s church of the Two Saints [St Mark and St Peter the Last of the Martyrs who was pope in AD302 – 311]. Yet it took a mere 30 minutes into the new year for tragedy to strike. As the service ended past midnight, Father Maqar asked his congregation to stay on for a few more minutes to sing a last hymn: O Lord of Hosts. Most joined in the singing, but some preferred to leave right away; they realised that it would take a long time to exit the church which was packed full of worshippers. No-one realised then that this afterthought of a hymn would save hundreds from a horrible fate that waited outside.
The carnage
Outside the church, a horrendous explosion occurred. A scene of horror instantly unfolded: bodies were blown up, body parts flew around, smashed to the ground or got caught in tree branches, and blood spattered up some 20 metres high, staining the walls of the church and adjacent buildings. Pools of blood and the remains of bodies filled the street. Cars parked nearby caught fire.
Inside the church, the terrifying explosion shattered the glass windows. The women screamed and the men panicked, while Fr Maqar tried to calm them down. They went out to encounter the grizzly bloodshed; all many could do was to rush back into the church to hold a short, tearful prayer service for the dead and the wounded.
Those who escaped death or injury screamed in shock and horror as they looked for family members and friends among the injured or the dead; some gathered body parts they could recognise to have belonged to loved ones. The scene was so horrifying it was surreal.
Pope Shenouda III, who was informed of the tragedy, quickly delegated Anba Pachomeus, Archbishop of Beheira, to the scene. Anba Pachomeus managed to calm down the Copts, who were violently protesting. Amid the blood-curdling carnage, a group of Muslims had converged on the scene wildly shouting “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is the greatest), sneering and hurling stones at the Copts. When the Copts turned against them the security men came in with rubber bullets and live ammunition. The brutality doubly augmented the agony of the Copts. Comfort only came with the solidarity displayed by other Muslims. The carnage left 20 Copts dead and 118 injured.
The prosecutor-general Abdel-Megid Mahmoud ordered an immediate investigation.
Case frozen?
One year on today, what has happened with the investigation?
Watani talked to Joseph Malak, the Alexandria lawyer who represents the Church and the families of those who lost their lives in the bombing, and who is also director of the Egyptian centre for studies on development and human rights.
“Directly following the bombing,” Mr Malak said, “an investigation began. On 23 January, the then Interior Minister Habib al-Adli, announced that 19 men had been caught and charged with the bombing which, he said, had been planned by elements belonging to the Palestinian jihadi movement Geish al-Islam, Army of Islam, and facilitated and executed by Egyptians.
“The 25 January Revolution, however,” Mr Malak reminded, “overshadowed everything else in Egypt. The investigation into the Alexandria New Year bombing was delayed and was limited to questioning eyewitnesses and the injured, besides looking into the criminal report. In March, all the suspects were released for lack of evidence.
“At the time,” Mr Malak said, “we filed a claim to the lawyer-general to be informed of the legal reasons behind the release order, if anyone else had been charged, and whether the file remained opened.
“Unfortunately,” Mr Malak added, “we received no response whatsoever. The case was obviously frozen.
“In the wake of the January Revolution,” Mr Malak noted, “public opinion tended to accuse Adli of being behind the bombing. But there was no solid evidence to that claim; it was backed by nothing more than material circulated on the Internet that UK intelligence had discovered documents to that effect.
“We do not have any prejudices as to who the culprits are; we just demand that proper investigations into the crime should be conducted and that the real culprit, whoever that may be, should be brought to justice.
“We have not ceased to raise our demands officially to the authorities; we even filed a lawsuit against the former Prime Minister Essam Sharaf and the former Minister of Interior Mansour al-Essawi for failure to order such investigation. The case should be seen in court on 1 January.”
Egypt owes them
Recalling the heart-rending hours following the bombing, Kameel Seddiq, a dermatologist and secretary of the Alexandria Coptic Orthodox Melli (Community) Council told Watani, “I rushed to the scene some three hours after the bombing, to find the still-warm flesh of the victims who had been blown up sticking onto the walls and human blood and members scattered everywhere. A middle-aged man stood crying his heart out in a corner. ‘I’ve lost my wife and two daughters’ he wept. ‘I loved them so, I loved them so.’
“Where there is a murder there is a murderer; this is sufficiently self-evident,” Dr Seddiq said. “We demand to know who the criminals who bombed the church in Alexandria are. We have no-one in specific to accuse and we do not care to what affiliation the killers belong. But we want them known, caught, and brought to justice. This is the right of the victims and the right of the community. How can the crime simply pass as though it never happened?
“There are promises by high ranking officials from the Ministry of Justice that serious investigations will shortly take place. We hope these pledges materialise. ”
“Another equally important point,” Dr Seddiq said, “is that the victims and their families are now finally being compensated by the State for their losses. These families lost loved ones or breadwinners who must be ranked as ‘martyrs’, since they paid their lives owing to serious shortcoming by the State security apparatus. As such, Egypt owes them compensation just as it owes the martyrs of the revolution.”
Their blood cries out
Among those who lost their lives in the bombing was 17-year-old Peter Samy, whose mother told Watani he had left his home that afternoon to buy new clothes for Christmas as the social tradition goes. “I called him at midnight,” his mother, who is widowed, said, “and he said he was in church and would be back shortly. I hung up but, some ten minutes later, heard the terrible blast; we live on the same street as the church. I rushed out to look for Peter but couldn’t find him. I asked at the Mar-Morqos hospital, but he hadn’t been brought in. I later knew his body had been identified in the morgue and I was only able to see his coffin at the funeral later.
“I know my son is in a better place now, but I still await his killers to be found and brought to justice. If justice is so hard to obtain on earth, I know Heaven is sure to execute it.”
The 23-old Nardine Samuel lost her father in the bombing, and has had to be operated upon 26 times to repair the damage done by the bombing to her leg and foot. Yet Nardine is grateful she escaped having her leg amputated. She was treated in Germany, and has one more surgery to go to be able to use her leg and foot properly.
“None of the injured was treated at the expense of the State,” Mr Malak told Watani. Their treatment was handled through donations form the congregation or through the efforts of prominent Copts who insisted on paying the expenses of those who needed treatment or surgery outside Egypt. These generous donors asked to remain anonymous.”
Shrine for the martyrs
Any visitor to the church of the Two Saints today will be met with a shrine which was built to commemorate the martyrs. Fr Maqar told Watani the shrine houses the photographs of the martyrs, relics of their bones, some of the bloodstained clothes they had worn on that fateful evening, as well as parts of blood-spattered walls and columns that had had to be taken out during the cleaning and restoration process the church building underwent. “Our children are in Heaven, no doubt about that,” he said.
One year on, however, it is more than obvious that the New Year bombing of the Two Saints church in Alexandria did not target the Copts alone; it was a blow to all Egypt. A memorial service for them was held the last day in the year, on the morning of Saturday 31 December 2011 at Mar-Mina monastery southwest of Alexandria where they are buried in a mass grave.
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