Cairo church fire kills over 40

The facade of the church is blackened on several levels. The occupants on the upper floors were trapped by the flames. The fire broke out in the popular district of Imbaba, located north of Cairo. At ground floor, several Coptic Christians were celebrating a mass in the Abu Sifin church, before being alerted. They couldn’t help those stuck at the top. “I saw people jumping from the upper floors. They were suffocating. All are dead“, says a witness.

The fire started following an air conditioner short circuit. Very quickly, the inhabitants of the district tried to intervene. “Downstairs there is a nursery, and upstairs there is also a nursery. Someone was able to get the children out of the ground floor, a church worker. He didn’t know there was anything upstairs, but when the noises and screams started, we went inside, climbed up and found dead people“says a man.