After Church Bombings, Egyptian Christians Are Resigned but Resolute<br />By DECLAN WALSHAPRIL 15, 2017<br />ALEXANDRIA, Egypt — When the bomb went off at St. Mark’s Cathedral one week ago, William Frances had one thought: "Oh, my God, it’s happening again." Six years earlier, Mr. Frances lost his mother, his sister<br />and a cousin in a bombing at another Alexandria church that left him devastated.<br />Mediterranean Sea Alexandria NILE DELTA Suez Canal Monastery of St. Mina Tanta Cairo WESTERN DESERT Nile EGYPT Minya 50 Miles APRIL 14, 2017<br />The Interior Ministry identified the Alexandria bomber as Mahmoud Hassan Mubarak Abdallah,<br />a petroleum worker who had returned to his home in Suez from Kuwait last year.<br />Mr. Sisi’s state of emergency had been imposed "not to protect the Copts," he said, "but to prevent a revolt of the<br />Copts." Violence against Christians is rare in Alexandria, a city with a rich literary and intellectual tradition.<br />Since a suicide bombing at a Cairo church in December, the Islamic State has trumpeted<br />its intention to seek a foothold in Egypt by slaughtering vulnerable Christians.<br />Attendance at Holy Week services at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Alexandria soared after the bombing, clerics said, as worshipers defied their fears<br />and crowded into a church whose pillars and altars were shrouded in black cloth.<br />Yet even as Mr. Sisi, in a visit with Pope Tawadros in Cairo on Thursday, vowed to track down those behind the bombings,<br />a crowd set fire to three Christian homes in Minya, 125 miles south of the capital, in a dispute over church-building.
