Seven dead in attack on bus carrying Egyptian Christians

Cairo

Gunmen attacked a bus carrying Coptic Christians in central Egypt, killing seven in the latest assault on a religious minority repeatedly targeted by jihadists.

The attackers opened fire on the bus of pilgrims in Minya province after they had visited a monastery, the local bishop said.

The gunmen "killed seven people and wounded 14, all of whom are in the Sheikh Fadel hospital in Beni Mazar" around 200 kilometres south of Cairo, said Bishop Makarios of Minya on Friday.

"The attack took place on the road" back from the Saint Samuel monastery, he added, as the bus was heading to the city of Sohag.

A security source confirmed that seven people were killed in the attack, but put the number of wounded at seven.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting.

ATTACKERS

State television said security forces were on Friday afternoon still in pursuit of the attackers.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi offered his support to the victims in a statement on Twitter.

"I am mourning with deep sadness the martyrs who fell today at the hands of traitors who are trying to harm the tightly-knit fabric of the nation," Sisi said.

"I wish the wounded a quick recovery and confirm our determination to continue our efforts to fight the darkness of terrorism and pursue the criminals."

Egypt's prosecutors office said it had received reports of "gunfire targeting a bus carrying a group of Copts returning from the Monastery of Saint Samuel the Confessor".

Copts, a Christian minority that make up 10 per cent of Egypt's 96 million people, have in recent years been repeatedly targeted by the Islamic State jihadist group.

IS killed more than 40 people in twin church bombings in April 2017 and a month later shot dead 28 Christians in Minya province.

Egypt's government imposed a three-month countrywide state of emergency after the April 2017 church bombings.

In December 2017 an IS gunman killed nine people in an attack on a church in a south Cairo suburb.

A year earlier, an IS suicide bomber killed almost 30 worshippers at a church in Cairo located in the Saint Mark's Cathedral complex, the seat of the Coptic papacy.

The Egyptian army launched a major offensive in February 2018 against IS in the Sinai Peninsula, where the group has waged a deadly insurgency since the fall of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

JIHADISTS

Alongside attacks against Copts, the jihadists have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen in Egypt in recent years and were allegedly behind a November 2017 attack against a mosque in north Sinai that killed more than 300 people.

The military offensive -- Dubbed "Sinai 2018" -- has killed more than 450 jihadists, according to an army estimate, while around 30 Egyptian soldiers have been killed during this year's operation.

Egyptian authorities have also convicted jihadists for their role in attacks against Copts.

Last month an Egyptian military court sentenced 17 people to death over the suicide attacks against churches in 2016 and 2017.

Copts have long complained of discrimination in Egypt and IS is not the only group to have launched sectarian attacks against the community.

In December 2017, hundreds of Muslims attacked a church south of Cairo that had been operating without a permit for more than a dozen years.