An explosion in an apartment in the Nasr City district of Cairo has left four people injured, including a 10-year-old boy and the owner of the apartment.
The blast occurred at approximately 10pm on Saturday while Hagar Mahrous, 18, Dina Mahrous, 15, and Amre Mahrous, 10, were visiting Ramy Shehata, the fiancé of the eldest sibling, according to a Ministry of Interior statement.
The explosion occurred after the 10 year-old “found a tinplate box on the main road outside the house and took it with him inside the apartment,” said the ministry. The eldest sibling and Shehata sustained “sporadic wounds”, the 15 year-old girl had a “wound on the right foot” and the youngest had a “fragment in the head and a brain haemorrhage.”
A ministry media official confirmed the tin box was the source of the explosion and that the injured were transferred to the hospital for treatment.
Following initial investigations, the ministry said “signs depicting the [four-finger] ‘Rabaa’ symbol and pictures of the deposed president [Mohamed Morsi]” and “250g of TNT [explosives]” were found in Shehata’s apartment. The ministry official confirmed that Shehata is a suspect and is being investigated.
Since Morsi’s ouster in July, there has been a rise in militant activity, mostly contained in the volatile Sinai Peninsula and targeting security forces. However there has been an increase in bomb attacks in urban areas, also targeting the security forces.
Police are carrying out investigations into Saturday night’s blast to determine the exact circumstances surround the incident.
