Dozens laid to rest after deadly church fire in Egypt Transcript

Speaker 1: (00:02)
Dozens of victims of a church fire in Egypt killed during Sunday mass were laid to rest hours later. Over 40 lives were lost in the blaze, sources say they were mostly children. Relatives of the fallen attended a mass funeral in Egypt’s second largest city of Giza. Coffins were passed through the church so that families could grieve and pray for the deceased.

Speaker 2: (00:25)
[inaudible 00:00:25]-

Speaker 1: (00:26)
About 1,000 people had been gathered for Sunday mass at the Abu Seifein church when the fire began. Sources said the fire blocked an entrance to the church causing a stampede. One of the injured who only gave his name as Curlos said, they saved who they could.

Speaker 3: (00:43)
[foreign language 00:00:43]

Speaker 4: (00:43)
The fourth floor of the church was on fire, there were children in the nursery and there was a mass. We were fasting these days and soon there will be Eid. I don’t know what happened. It was an electrical fire, but there were kids and elderly people. We saved who we could save. We looked up and saw a lot of black fumes in the air.

Speaker 1: (01:00)
The Interior Ministry said in a statement, a forensic examination showed the fire began in the second floor air conditioning as a result of an electrical malfunction. It also said that smoke inhalation was the main cause of death. It added that the victim’s families would receive about $5,000 each in compensation. Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi also offered his condolences in a tweet. Electrical fires are not uncommon in Egypt. In late 2020, at least seven people were killed in a hospital fire.