The number of deaths from the attack on Friday that targeted the St. Peter and St Paul Church has risen to 26, after a woman who had been injured in the explosion succumbed to her wounds at El-Demerdash hospital, said a statement by the Ministry of Health.
Audet Saleh Michael suffered from lacerations in her lungs and intestines. According to statements made to state media outlets by Sherif Wadie, the counsellor of the health minister. The 70-year-old had undergone three surgeries before dying.
Wadie said there are still 23 people who were injured in the blast that are being treated at hospitals. Three of these cases are in critical condition. The patients are distributed across El Glaa Military, El Demerdash, Dar El–Shefa, and El-Maadi Military hospitals.
Last week, 25 people died and 49 others were injured in an explosion that rocked Cairo’s St. Peter and St. Paul’s Church located in Abbasiya.
Meanwhile, hundreds of protestors staged demonstrations outside the St. Mary and St. Athanasius Coptic Orthodox Church in Cairo’s Nasr City because they were denied entry to the funeral for the victims.
The state had organised a funeral for the victims, which was held at the Unknown Soldier Monument. During the funeral, President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi said that a 22-year-old suicide bomber had been behind the attack.
“The man who entered the church and blew himself up is named Mahmoud Shafiq Mohamed Mostafa,” Al-Sisi said. “His body was found on site. He used an explosive belt.”
The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack.
In a statement, IS named Abou Abdallah Al-Masry as the suicide bomber who carried out a “martyrdom operation” on a Christian house of worship located inside Egypt’s main Coptic cathedral in Abbasiya.
The statement read: “Thanks to God, Brother Abou Abdallah Al-Masry martyred himself at a Christian temple in the Abbasiya suburb in central Cairo. He blew himself up using an explosive belt.”
According to the group’s statement, the explosion caused 80 casualties. IS said that it will target any “apostates” or “infidels” in Egypt and anywhere else in the world. After the statement was issued, the group published a single photo of a masked suicide bomber carrying a gun.
