Fire Kills 47 Christian Pilgrims at Egypt Festival

Sparks from a makeshift food stall were blamed Wednesday for a fire that killed at least 47 Christian pilgrims, most of them children, who had camped outside a monastery.

Hundreds of tents lay in smoldering heaps after the Tuesday night blaze that was fed by exploding butane lamps.

Witnesses said monks quickly closed El Muharraq Monastery’s massive front door after the fire broke out and that some of the dead were trampled as panicking pilgrims rushing to the door turned back toward a gate in the fence around the campground.

5,000 Pilgrims at Monastery

About 5,000 Coptic Christian pilgrims were at the monastery for the Feast of the Consecration of the Church of the Virgin. It commemorates the farthest southern site to which the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph is believed to have traveled.

Neither the church nor the monastery, a 10-acre compound with 70 to 80 monks in residence, was damaged in the tent-city fire.

A senior provincial security officer for Asyut, 240 miles south of Cairo, said 26 children, 15 men and six women died from burns, smoke inhalation or from being trampled. He said 15 others were injured trying to escape.

The blaze began when sparks from the food stall, which provided pilgrims with tea, coffee and sandwiches, set nearby tents on fire, he said. The burning tents, in turn, ignited about three dozen butane lamps, said the officer, who spoke on condition he not be identified.

The officer said the stand’s two owners, both Copts, were arrested, but that the fire clearly was an accident.