Mexican FM urges probe into Egypt killings
Claudia Ruiz Massieu, Mexico’s foreign minister – and most recently, the tourism minister – said on Monday that only two Mexicans were confirmed dead by the government.
The office of Egypt’s top prosecutor has issued a gag order on the investigation into the deadly attack this week in which Egyptian forces mistakenly killed eight Mexican tourists on a desert safari.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry expressed condolences but declined to give an account of the circumstances surrounding the deaths, saying details will be provided once the full investigation has concluded.
Moises Garduño, Middle East expert from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said there have been various incidents in Egypt where innocent people are killed “accidentally”, after armed forces officials “confuse” them with terrorists.
Egypt has been fighting against Islamist militancy for years, further escalated by the 2013 ousting of President Mohammed Morsi – a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
“I don’t think they were mistaken (for militants)”, she said.
The vehicles used by the tourist convoy closely resembled those of the militants the joint force had been pursuing, security sources said.
A Mexican man and woman were confirmed dead, the ambassador said.
Egyptian journalists wait for information about tourists who were…
Initial reports on Sunday night from Egyptian security officials said the error took place late at night, when mistaking Mexican tourists for Egyptian jihadis might be less hard to imagine.
The Mexicans have said their tour group came under aerial attack on Sunday in what the Egyptian interior ministry described as a botched operation against militants in the Western Desert.
After launching spectacular attacks against security forces in its north Sinai bastion over the past two years, ISIS in Egypt is now adopting tactics similar to those of the ISIS group in Iraq and Syria – abducting and beheading foreigners.
Egyptians, too, “have experienced first-hand such unfathomable loss” in repeated terrorist attacks, Shoukri wrote, and the country’s security forces were “the most cautious and careful when it comes to preserving the lives of others”.
Ruiz Massieu said Mexico’s ambassador in Egypt, Jorge Álvarez Fuentes, met with the Mexican survivors of the attack.
According to the Rasha Azazi, a spokesperson for the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism, the tour company involved “did not have permits and did not inform authorities”, The Associated Press learned. There were 14 or 15 Mexicans who were traveling on a desert oasis tour.
We hold the military junta fully responsible for this crime, and hope the Government of Mexico will support the struggle of our people in its Revolution in Egypt until Egypt is once again a safe, stable, dignified and generous homeland.
In July 2014, 22, troops were killed in an attack on a checkpoint near the Farafra Oasis in the Western Desert near, the border with lawless Libya.