A fire ripped through a packed Coptic Orthodox church during morning services in Egypt’s capital on Sunday, quickly filling with thick black smoke and killing 41 worshippers, including at least 15 children. Several trapped colleagues jumped from the upper floors of the Abu Sefein Martyr Church to try to escape the raging flames, witnesses said. “Suffocation, suffocation, everyone is dead,” said a distraught witness, who gave only a partial name, Abu Bishoy. Sixteen people were injured, including four police officers involved in the rescue operation. The cause of the fire at the church in the working-class neighborhood of Imbaba was not immediately known. According to a police statement, the initial investigation indicated an electrical short circuit. Sobbing families waited outside to hear relatives inside the church and in nearby hospitals where the victims were taken. Footage from the scene released online showed burnt furniture, including wooden tables and chairs. Firefighters were seen putting out the fire while others carried the victims to ambulances. Witnesses said there were many children inside the four-story building, which had two daycare centers. “There are children, we didn’t know how to go about it,” Abu Bishoi said. “And we don’t know whose son or whose daughter this is. Is it possible?” A total of 15 children were killed in the fire, according to Copts United, a news website focused on Christian news. A casualty list obtained by The Associated Press said 20 bodies, including 10 children, were taken to the Imbaba public hospital. Three were siblings, 5-year-old twins and a 3-year-old, he said. The church’s bishop, Abdul Masih Bakhit, was also among the dead at the hospital morgue. Twenty-one bodies were transferred to other hospitals. Musa Ibrahim, a spokesman for the Coptic Orthodox Church, told the AP that 5-year-old triplets, their mother, grandmother and an aunt were among the dead. Witness Emad Hanna said a church worker managed to get some children out of the church’s daycare centers. “We went up the stairs and found people dead. And we started to see from the outside that the smoke was getting bigger and people wanted to jump from the top floor,” Hanna said. “We found the children,” some dead, some alive, he added. The country’s health minister blamed smoke and commotion as people tried to flee the fire for causing the casualties. It was one of the worst fires in Egypt in recent years. The church is located on a narrow street in one of the most densely populated neighborhoods of Cairo. Sunday is the first working day of the week and traffic jams clog the roads in Imbama and surrounding areas in the morning. Some relatives criticized what they said were delays in the arrival of ambulances and firefighters. “They came after people died… They came after the church burned down,” shouted a woman standing outside the smoldering church. Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghafar countered that the first ambulance arrived at the scene two minutes after the fire was reported. Fifteen fire engines rushed to the scene to put out the flames, while ambulances took the injured to nearby hospitals, officials said. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi spoke by phone with Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II to express his condolences, the president’s office said. Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, also offered his condolences to the head of the Coptic church. “I am closely following the developments of the tragic accident,” El Sisi wrote on Facebook. “I have instructed all relevant government agencies and bodies to take all necessary measures and immediately deal with this accident and its consequences.” Abdel-Ghafar, the health minister, said in a statement that two of the wounded had been discharged from hospital while the others were still being treated. The interior ministry said it received a report of the fire at 9 a.m. local time and first responders determined the fire started in an air conditioner on the second floor of the building. The ministry, which oversees the police and fire department, blamed an electrical short circuit for the fire, which produced huge amounts of smoke. Meanwhile, the country’s attorney general, Hamada el-Sawy, ordered an investigation and a team of prosecutors was sent to the church. He said most victims died of smoke inhalation. By Sunday afternoon, emergency services said they had managed to put out the fire and the prime minister and other senior government officials arrived to inspect the site. Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli said the surviving victims and families of the dead would receive compensation payments and that the government would rebuild the church. By late afternoon, caskets carrying the dead were taken in ambulances for pre-burial prayers at two churches in the nearby Waraq neighborhood, as women wept on their way. Hundreds of mourners gathered at the churches for the funerals, before the bodies were taken for burial in nearby cemeteries. Egypt’s Christians make up about 10 percent of the country’s more than 103 million people and have long complained of discrimination by the nation’s Muslim majority. Sunday’s fire was one of the worst in recent years in Egypt, where safety standards and fire regulations are poorly enforced. In March last year, a fire at a clothing factory near Cairo killed at least 20 people and injured 24.
