Egypt (McKoy’s News) – Egyptian Christians Killed in Bus Attack: Gunmen have attacked a bus carrying Coptic Christians in central Egypt, killing at least 23 people and wounding 25 others, state media report.
The bus was heading towards the Monastery of St Samuel the Confessor in Minya province, about 220km (140 miles) south Cairo, when it came under fire. No group immediately said it was behind the attack.
But Islamic State (IS) militants have targeted Copts several times in recent months, and vowed to do so again.
Two suicide bombings at churches in the northern cities of Alexandria and Tanta on 9 April left 46 people dead.
Witnesses told reporters that the Egyptian Christians killed on Friday had been travelling to the ancient Monastery of St Samuel, in western Minya, to pray.
Masked men stopped their bus as it drove along a road leading to the monastery with one other bus and a small lorry, and then opened fire, they said.
The health ministry cited witnesses as saying there had been between eight and 10 attackers, and that they had been wearing military uniforms.
Copts make up about 10% of Egypt’s population of 92 million.
Last month’s attacks prompted President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi to declare a three-month nationwide state of emergency and promise to do whatever was necessary to confront jihadists.
But many Copts complain that the Egyptian authorities are not doing enough to protect them, says the BBC’s Orla Guerin in Cairo.