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French school party hit by blast in Cairo market
Kiran Randhawa and Peter Allen in Paris23 Feb 2009
A SCHOOLGIRL was killed and 17 of her classmates injured when a bomb ripped through a crowded café in Cairo.
The 17-year-old French girl was on a week's study holiday when she was hit by the explosion yesterday.
One of the teenagers was said to be seriously injured and another two are also still in hospital after the attack on an open-air hotel café packed with tourists in the Khan al-Khalili market, a major attraction and site of a prominent mosque.
Four Germans and three Egyptians were also injured. Five of them are thought to be in a serious condition. Police said they thought the device, thought to be have been home-made, had been thrown from a balcony.
The French party, from Levallois-Perret, a suburb of Paris, were making last-minute purchases in the crowded bazaar, next to one of Cairo's most revered shrines, the Hussein mosque, when they were caught in at least two explosions.
The parents of the unnamed victim were today due to fly to Egypt to formally identify their daughter's body before returning it to France for burial. They will be joined by the parents of the very seriously injured student.
Isabelle Balkany, of Levallois town hall, said: "In all, 42 were taking part in the holiday, all aged between 14 and 18. There are 17 with different wounds. These range from blown-out eardrums to shrapnel injuries."
Families and friends of the party were today arriving at the council offices in Levallois-Perret, where a doctor and two psychologists were standing by to offer counselling.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy expressed "deep sorrow" at the death of the girl. Although it was initially thought the bomb was thrown from an upper floor of the hotel, there were conflicting reports that the bomb had exploded under a bench.
Montasser el-Zayat, a lawyer who has defended Islamic extremists, told Arabic news channel al-Jazeera the attack might be linked to anger over the recent Israeli offensive in Gaza.
"The nature of the explosion looks like an act carried out by young, inexperienced amateurs whose emotions were inflamed by the events of Gaza," Mr el-Zayat said. The area was sealed off as bomb disposal experts were sent in to defuse a second device which failed to explode.
"The blast was so powerful that the earth shook underneath us," a witness told Egypt's Nile News TV. "We all lay down on the ground. Blood was streaming from the back of one of the people running away from the blast. I even saw a separated hand and an arm. Just shredded human flesh," he said.
Three people were killed in a similar attack on the market in 2005.
