CAIRO — An electrical fire that turned a
crowded
Cairo church into a deathtrap highlights a persistent problem, say
Coptic Christians in majority-Muslim Egypt — a struggle to build or renovate
their places of worship.
اضافة اعلان
The residential-style multi-story building housing
the Abu Sifin Church where 41 worshippers died had only one exit and, like most
structures in Egypt, lacked smoke detectors and alarms or fire escapes.
Its location in a maze of alleyways in the
working-class district of Imbaba was part of the reason firefighters reportedly
took more than an hour to arrive, during which dozens died of smoke inhalation.
Unable to escape the flames down the narrow
staircase from the upper floors, some of the about 200 worshippers “threw
themselves out of the windows,” one witness told AFP.
Christian leaders say policy changes since 2016 have
facilitated obtaining building permits — but also that many churches remain
located in dangerous makeshift locations unsuitable for large congregations.
“As we’ve seen, these are life and death matters and
disproportionately affect churches in poorer areas,” historian Amy Fallas, who
has studied the issue, told AFP.
Since Sunday’s disaster, two more churches have
caught fire, both blazes also blamed on “power surges”, though they were
quickly contained and caused no casualties, according to church and official
sources.
Copts are the
Middle East’s largest Christian
community but are a minority in Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country,
where they account for 10 to 15 percent of the country’s 103 million people.
Christians have in the past been targeted in deadly
attacks by Islamist militants, particularly after the 2013 overthrow of
Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, with churches, schools, and homes burnt down.
‘Bureaucratic hurdles’
Such violence has eased, and
Egyptian President
Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the first to attend Christmas mass
every year, was quick to offer his condolences Sunday to Pope Tawadros II, head
of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
With world attention on the tragedy, a presidential
decree was issued for the Armed Forces Engineering Authority to renovate the
charred church.
In the aftermath of the disaster, Tawadros II said
on national TV that Copts often pray in “small, inadequate churches”, and that
the Abu Sifin Church measured “only 120sq.m.”.
The pope said Copts had often faced bureaucratic
hurdles in obtaining permits to build and repair churches, “a very cumbersome
process”, but he was careful to clarify this had been the case until “over a
decade ago”.
A 2016 law to improve the process has been lauded as
a breakthrough by authorities. By last year, 1,077 churches had been recognized
as legal places of worship, according to a cabinet statement that hailed
Egypt’s “unique model of interfaith coexistence and national unity”.
Father Yohanna, of Cairo’s Great Saint Anthony’s
Church, told AFP that the process to build and renovate churches, once
difficult, had indeed “become smooth” since 2016.
But the priest — who lost six relatives in Sunday’s
fire, including three children — also said that places of worship still require
better inspections to avoid more such tragedies.
‘National unity’
Critics say the state’s
legal push in the name of “national unity” in fact stigmatizes complaints of
discrimination as “anti-patriotic”, as Fallas argued in a paper for the Tahrir
Institute for Middle East Policy.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR)
says authorities have conditionally approved fewer than 40 percent of requests
to build or repair churches since 2016, with only 20 percent granted final
approval.
EIPR also argues that Copts still face
discrimination.
A fire in 2016 that destroyed the Church of Saint
Joseph and Abu Sifin in Ezbet Faragallah in Minya, south of Cairo, has been
described by some as a “deliberate act”, according to the group.
The church submitted a request to rebuild the house
of worship after it was demolished in 2021, but has received no response so
far.
Nine Coptic Christians who held a small protest
demanding the church be rebuilt were detained for three months and released in
January.
Pope Tawadros II, in the aftermath of Sunday’s fire
at the Abu Sifin Church in densely populated Imbaba, meanwhile called on state
officials “to move the church to a more spacious area”.
Father Yohanna, however, said proposals to relocate
it to an outer district are “not practical” for the local Christian community,
arguing that “places of worship must be close to residential areas”.
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