CAIRO, 8 April 2005 — An explosion went off at a popular bazaar near Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo yesterday, killing at least two tourists and wounding nineteen, police officials said.
A statement released by the Egyptian Interior Ministry said that 19 people including four French and 3 Americans, one Italian and a Turkish tourist were wounded in the blast.
The ministry denied reports that four people were killed.
An Egyptian official investigating the blast said a female French tourist and another male American tourist were killed. “The woman was already found dead and her body was in an unrecognizable condition, while the man died immediately after being transferred to the hospital,” said the official who declined to be identified.
“Six of the wounded are severely injured and burned and are being treated now at a nearby Cairo hospital, while the rest are expected to leave the hospital in the next couple of days,” he added.
Another top official source told Arab News that nine of the wounded being treated now at Al Hussein University Hospital are Egyptian nationals, adding that a few buildings were affected by the explosion.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack — the first of its kind since the last attack in September 1997, when two gunmen fired automatic rifles killing 12 people in a tour bus outside the Egyptian Museum.
Police sources said a man on a motorcycle threw the bomb at about 5 p.m. local time (1500 GMT) in Gawhar Al-Qa’ed Street, 320 km from Al-Azhar Mosque, the oldest and most prestigious Islamic institution in Egypt, in the popular Al-Hussein neighborhood.
The street is one of the narrowest in the area that is lined with shops catering for tourists who visit for buying jewelry and clothes.
Witnesses told Arab News that the man on the motorcycle fled immediately after throwing something black at a tourist bus.
“There was a man who was driving so fast and all of a sudden threw something at a tourist bus and then we heard the explosion,” said Muhammad Khaled, an owner of a shop at the Al-Hussien bazaar where the explosion occurred.
“We all closed our shops and ran away because we did not know what was happening and were afraid of another bombing,” Khaled added.
Khaled’s shop and all the shops in Al-Hussein were closed after the attack until further notice for security reasons.
Other shop owners told Arab News that they hope the accident would not affect the country’s tourism industry, Egypt’s biggest foreign currency earner.
Egyptian Tourism Minister Ahmad Al-Maghraby told the Egyptian state-owned TV that the country cannot talk at the moment about the effect the incident might have on Egyptian tourism. “At the moment, we only care about people’s lives and safety and all our efforts are focused on making sure that the injured are getting the best treatment,” he added.
