'Boy died in my arms'
2006-04-25 10:18
Dahab - Suicide bombers killed 23 people including foreigners and wounded scores more after they blew themselves up in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Dahab during peak season, said officials.
Monday's almost simultaneous bombings, the third attack against Sinai peninsula resorts in 18 months, drew condemnation from world leaders and President Hosni Mubarak vowed to punish the perpetrators of these "heinous acts of terrorism".
The interior ministry said 20 Egyptians and three foreigners, including a German child, were among the dead. Security officials had earlier said a Swiss national and a Russian were killed.
The bombs hit the Ghazala supermarket and two restaurants in the busiest part of Dahab, bringing scenes of chaos to this popular destination for divers and backpackers whose name meant gold in Arabic.
10-year-old boy dies
Michael Hartlich, a German doctor who was spending a holiday in Dahab, said: "There was a dead man, his brain was out, his eye was out, there were many injuries. I sent a boy with his leg cut off to surgery in Sharm el-Sheikh."
Hartlich said: "Another boy died in my arms, he had severe chest injuries. He was sitting in a Chinese restaurant, he was only 10.
"It was like war. I'd never seen anything like it before, a child, a baby, blood everywhere, the smell of burnt skin, of burnt hair."
Reports initially said the blasts were detonated by remote control, but a security official confirmed that suicide bombers were to blame for at least two of the explosions.
'We heard three explosions'
Security experts had noted that the blasts had not caused craters in the ground and that early indications from the scene pointed to blasts carried out by suicide bombers.
French tourist Frederic Mingeon said: "About 19:00, we heard three explosions close to the seafront alongside a supermarket in the centre of Dahab.
"There was a plume of smoke and people started running and screaming." On Tuesday morning, shaken bleak-faced survivors unable to really talk could be seen sifting through the carnage.
Security and diplomatic sources said that American, British, French, German, Israeli and Italian nationals were among the injured as well as Arabs.
Bombers struck on Sham el-Nessim
No-one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, which came one day after a new audiotape of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden surfaced, accusing the "crusaders" of the West of waging war against Islam, referring to the conflict in Darfur and the isolation of the Hamas-led Palestinian government.
Dahab, which was popular with Western backpackers and budget Israeli tourists, was also packed with Egyptians enjoying a public holiday.
The bombers struck on Sham el-Nessim, a traditional holiday, which marked the beginning of spring, and a day before Sinai Liberation Day, which celebrated Israel's withdrawal from the peninsula in 1982.
The resorts of Egypt's south Sinai Peninsula had been repeatedly hit by Islamist militants.