Egypt blasts: 14 still missing
2005-07-24 16:35
Cairo - Fourteen people remained unaccounted for on Sunday following the devastating bombings at Egypt's Sharm al-Sheikh resort, officials confirmed - while security sources said the number of arrests made had risen to 87.
The men were picked up in the streets and at their homes in and around al-Arish, 380 kilometres northeast of Cairo on the northern coast of the Sinai Peninsula. They were not charged, sources said.
The area had also been the site of extensive roundups following the October 2004 explosions in Taba, also in Sinai. The trial of three suspects of those bombings meanwhile resumed in Ismailia.
The roundups followed comments by Egypt's interior minister Saturday that he did not rule out a connection between the Sharm al-Sheikh incidents and those in and near Taba last year.
Unaccounted for
Ministry of Tourism spokesperson Hala el-Khatib earlier said 14 persons remained unaccounted for according to a count taken at the resort's hotels.
Minister of Health Mohammed Awwad Tageldin meanwhile insisted the number killed was 63 and not 88 as reported by some media.
He was speaking at Cairo airport on returning from Sharm al-Sheikh where he was following up on the condition of what he said were the 66 injured remaining in hospital for treatment.
There have been ongoing discrepancies in the casualty figures. Hospital sources had earlier put the number of dead at 88, while the prime minister's office put it at 75.
Foreigners
Tourism Ministry spokesperson el-Khatib said 34 bodies had not been identified, and some may be foreigners.
El-Khatib had earlier confirmed that a Czech and an Italian were among the dead, who were mostly local people. Saeed Abdel Fattah, manager of Sharm al-Sheikh international hospital, was quoted as stating that two Britons were also killed.
Many tourists were making their way back to the mainly western European homelands as quickly as possible on Sunday - but many were also insisting on staying in a spirit of defiance to terrorism.
As the clearing-up operation continued amid the devastation, investigators were probing just how the blasts were triggered within minutes of each other shortly after 01:00 on Saturday.
Witnesses said that in the worst attack, a bomber rammed his car into the Ghazala Gardens Hotel. A few hundred metres away, a bomb went off in a car park near the Moevenpick Hotel. In the Old Market area, the blast ripped through a popular street cafe.
From November 1997 through October 2004, Egypt was free of terrorist incidents. The Taba blasts along the border with Israel ended the quiet period and killed several Israelis.
- SAPA