Hundreds mourn bombing victims at Egypt church

The church in Tanta, Egypt, was the site of one of two bombings last week.

ByABC News
April 16, 2017, 4:10 PM

— -- Hundreds of mourners gathered at the Mar Girgis church in Tanta, Egypt, on Easter Sunday, one week after twin bombings claimed the lives of 45 people and sent the country into a state of emergency.

The Coptic Christian church was the site of the first of the two bombings on Palm Sunday last week.

Today, churchgoers waited in long lines to enter Mar Girgis, which still had substantial signs of damage, a Reuters video showed.

Outside of the church, people bowed their heads and prayed in front of wreaths and crosses that were laid out to commemorate the dead.

Last week's second bombing occurred several hours after the first, at Saint Mark's Cathedral in the coastal city of Alexandria.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for both Palm Sunday blasts, which also left scores injured.

Last week, members of Egypt's Christian minority expressed anguish and despair in interviews with ABC News.

Egypt's Christian minority makes up roughly 10 percent of the country's population, according to a recent estimate by the CIA.

"With every attack, I feel like I'm less of an Egyptian," Nancy Emad, a 26-year-old case worker with an international nongovernmental organization who heard the news of the church bombings on her way to Mass in Cairo last week, said last Sunday.

However, she vowed that the bombings would not make her leave the country.

"I can leave for better economic opportunities, but not because my safety or my spirituality is not guaranteed because I will pray whenever I want and wherever I want," she said. "No one gets to decide [that] for me."

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