Egypt Rejects Criticism Over Airstrike That Killed Eight Mexican Tourists Jared Malsin - The New York Times
go to original September 16, 2015

Mexico foreign minister's demanding to know why Egyptian Security forces shot at a group of tourists. Egypt says it was an accident. Al Jazeera's Emike Umolu reports (Al Jazeera English)

Mexico’s foreign minister traveled to Egypt on Tuesday to demand answers about a mistaken military airstrike over the weekend that hit a picnic full of Mexican tourists, killing a dozen people, while her Egyptian counterpart defended the professionalism and sacrifice of the Egyptian security forces.

The back and forth raised new doubts about the likelihood of a solution to the mystery of how an Apache military helicopter crew could have mistaken a midday picnic in the desert for a camp of heavily armed militants. Human rights advocates charged that the Egyptian Army had often failed to distinguish civilians from combatants and had seldom sought to investigate or punish those responsible.

“We are dealing with a dreadful loss of life and an unjustified aggression,” the Mexican foreign minister, Claudia Ruiz Massieu, said late Monday before boarding a plane with the families of those killed or injured for a hastily planned trip to Cairo.

She vowed to press the Egyptian authorities “for firsthand information that clarifies the circumstances of this deplorable event that cost the lives of innocent Mexican tourists.”

In “an open letter from Egypt to the people of Mexico,” Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian foreign minister, began by offering “deepest sympathy and condolences for the loss of innocent Mexican lives” and went on to say that his nation’s law enforcement personnel exercised caution and restraint even when their own lives were in peril.

He said that an inquiry into “what happened on that fateful day” was still underway. “The emerging facts indicate that an operation was taking place against terrorists in that area at the time the convoy passed,” he said. “We still do not know if the convoy was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, or if some error was involved.”

Read the rest at The New York Times

Related: An Open Letter from Egypt to the People of Mexico by Egypt’s Foreign Minister (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

Photo: USNews

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!