After Church Bombings, Egyptian Christians Are Resigned but Resolute
By DECLAN WALSHAPRIL 15, 2017
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt — When the bomb went off at St. Mark’s Cathedral one week ago, William Frances had one thought: "Oh, my God, it’s happening again." Six years earlier, Mr. Frances lost his mother, his sister
and a cousin in a bombing at another Alexandria church that left him devastated.
Mediterranean Sea Alexandria NILE DELTA   Suez Canal Monastery of St. Mina Tanta Cairo WESTERN DESERT Nile EGYPT Minya 50 Miles APRIL 14, 2017
The Interior Ministry identified the Alexandria bomber as Mahmoud Hassan Mubarak Abdallah,
a petroleum worker who had returned to his home in Suez from Kuwait last year.
Mr. Sisi’s state of emergency had been imposed "not to protect the Copts," he said, "but to prevent a revolt of the
Copts." Violence against Christians is rare in Alexandria, a city with a rich literary and intellectual tradition.
Since a suicide bombing at a Cairo church in December, the Islamic State has trumpeted
its intention to seek a foothold in Egypt by slaughtering vulnerable Christians.
Attendance at Holy Week services at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Alexandria soared after the bombing, clerics said, as worshipers defied their fears
and crowded into a church whose pillars and altars were shrouded in black cloth.
Yet even as Mr. Sisi, in a visit with Pope Tawadros in Cairo on Thursday, vowed to track down those behind the bombings,
a crowd set fire to three Christian homes in Minya, 125 miles south of the capital, in a dispute over church-building.