Three days of national mourning announced in Egypt after bombing in Sinai

Bomb laden in the car killed 11 soldiers in Egypt's Sinai
(Image: Daily Star)

Suicide bomb attack on Wednesday, 20 November, has killed at least 11 soldiers and wounded 35 in Northern Sinai. Terrible bombing happened on the road between El-Arish and Rafaa, close to the borders with Israel and Gaza.

According to the Armed Forces spokesperson, the car laden with explosives has crashed with the bus carrying the off-duty soldiers who were expected to go on their vacations.

MENA news agency in its turn has reported the bomb was laden in the car parked nearby.

This tragedy is one of the deadliest attack against Egyptian soldiers occurred in the restive Sinai Peninsula since the August attack on the border which killed 25 Egyptian soldiers and shocked all the country.

The attacks against Egyptian military and police facilities and personnel and terrorist activities have increased in Egypt’s Sinai after ouster of the Islamist backed President Mohamed Morsy and happened almost on a daily basis, but the Wednesday attack was one of the deadliest.

Egypt’s Head of the Armed Forces General Abdel Fattah El-Sissi has addressed the nation on Wednesday and tried to comfort the families of the killed soldiers. He stated that those attacks will just increase the level and intensity of the fight against terrorism in Egypt. He declared that Egypt’s army is ready to die defending people of Egypt and the country’s interests.

35 soldiers were wounded as a result of an attack, according to the Ministry of Health, 7 of the soldiers are currently in a hard condition. Some of the injured soldiers have been transferred to Cairo’s Maadi Hospital, while some others are being treated in El-Arish Hospital, in Northern Sinai.

Egypt’s interim President Adly Mansour in his address to Egyptian people has announce three days of the national mourning in the country in order to commemorate the killed Egyptian soldiers in Sinai, 26 people killed in a train accident in Giza on Monday and senior officer of the State’s National Security Apparatus, Mohamed Mabrouk, who was assassinated on Sunday.

Though despite the speculations over the returning of the curfew and renewing of the state of emergency in Egypt due to the bombing in Sinai Egypt’s government has announced that no state of emergency will be declared, but anti-terrorist law drafted by the Ministry of Justice is being currently revised.