CAIRO - The Coptic church was so close to the apartment where a family of believers lived in a working-class neighbourhood of Cairo that the parents couldn't imagine anything happening to their three children when they walked together to attend Mass or school there.
The children's mother, Huweida Hosni, sat at the wake with her eyes closed and her head back against the wall as a priest spoke about the children returning to God. He said the fire originated with an electrical generator used at the church, which like many Coptic houses of worship, was in poor repair, according to witnesses. He said he could not provide further details about the blaze while the fire was under investigation.
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who is supported by many Egyptian Christians because they feel he is a bulwark against Islamist groups who might threaten them, introduced a law in 2016 intended to overhaul regulations preventing many churches from being licensed. In the closely knit, impoverished Cairo neighbourhood where the fire started, Muslim residents were among those who helped to rescue the fire's survivors.
straits_times Being cancer-stricken and begging CPF Board to repay overdue debt; that which in any case cannot be done as the money had been commingled and funneled to private entity Temasek Holdings for Ho Ching to wager on unviable, untenable and ultimately, invariably doomed gambles