A man was killed after an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded next to him in Cairo’s Matariya neighbourhood, Ministry of Health spokesperson Hossam Abdel Ghaffar told Daily News Egypt Sunday.
The man was working alongside a rubbish pile, when he found a suspicious looking bag “and began playing around with it until it exploded”, Abdel Ghaffar said.
The man was later taken to a public Matariya hospital, but died in the late hours of Saturday night.
The Ministry of Interior media office has yet to confirm any incident involving an explosive device on Saturday.
Media reports stated that two IEDs exploded in Alexandria Saturday night, with one going off next to a bank injuring four people.
The explosions took place in the same weekend of the Sharm El-Sheikh Economic Summit. Egypt has been promoting heavily for the Summit in the hopes that it will bring in more foreign investments and more “economic development”.
Meanwhile, experts told Daily News Egypt that IED targets have shifted away from police stations and security sites to telecommunications and small business sites. The shift has been interpreted as a means of discouraging investors ahead of the Economic Summit.
Last week, a series of small bombings in Cairo, Giza, and Alexandria targeted Etisalat and Vodafone shops, Maadi’s Grand Mall, Carrefour, and electricity units.
