Death Toll Up to 29 as Coptic Christians Who Refused to Convert to Islam Were Killed

Survivors of Egypt Christian bus attack recount their horror

Pope calls victims of ISIS attack 'martyrs'

The Associated Press 

Relatives of killed Coptic Christians grieved as they gathered during the funeral at Abu Garnous Cathedral in the north Minya town of Maghagha on Friday.

(Mohamed el-Shahed/AFP/Getty Images)

Survivors of a deadly attack by Islamic militants on a bus taking Egyptian Christians to a remote desert monastery are painting a picture of untold horror, with children hiding under their seats to escape gunfire.

Videos of interviews with the survivors surfaced on social media networks on Sunday, two days after 29 were killed in the attack on a desert road south of the capital. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack on Friday. It was the fourth attack against Christians in Egypt since December to be claimed by the IS. The string of attacks have killed more than 100 and injured scores.

One survivor, a small boy who seemed to be about six, said his mother pushed him under her seat and covered him with a bag. A young woman speaking from her hospital bed said the assailants ordered the women to surrender their jewelry and money before they opened fire, killing the men first and then some of the women.

They chose death

The woman said the gunmen were masked and wore military uniforms.

Bishop Makarios, the top Coptic Orthodox cleric in Minya, the province where the attack took place, said the assailants told Christian men they ordered off the bus they would spare their lives if they converted to Islam.

"They chose death," said Makarios, who has been an outspoken critic of the government's handling of anti-Christian violence in Minya, where Christians account for more than 35 per cent of the population, the highest anywhere in Egypt.

'Holding on to our faith'

"We take pride to die while holding on to our faith," he said in a television interview aired late Saturday.

Makarios confirmed that the assailants stole the women's jewelry and his contention that the men were ordered off the bus before being killed was also confirmed by a video clip purportedly in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. This video showed at least four or five bodies of adult men lying on the desert sand next to the bus; women and other men screamed and cried as they stood or squatted next to the bodies.

Pope Francis recites a prayer from his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on Sunday. (Alessandra Tarantino/Associated Press)

Egypt responded to the attack with a wave of airstrikes against suspected militant bases where the military said the perpetrators trained. A manhunt for the assailants in the vast deserts to the west of the site of the attack has so far yielded no arrests.

In the Vatican, Pope Francis, for the second day in a row, expressed his solidarity with Egypt's Coptic Christians following Friday's attack. He led thousands of people in prayer Sunday for the victims, who Francis said were killed in "another act of ferocious violence" after having refused to renounce their Christian faith.

Speaking from his studio window over St. Peter's Square, he said: "May the Lord welcome these courageous witnesses, these martyrs, in his peace and convert the hearts of the violent ones."

I suspect there is nothing there to convert!