Mexico condemns deaths of citizens in Egypt

According to Mexico’s foreign minister, Egypt will provide proper medical treatment to the victims and aid in the repatriation of the bodies back to Mexico, AP reported. They are being treated at a hospital in suburban Cairo. “Some attempted to run but the military followed them and opened fire against anyone who tried to escape”.

“The Mexican government asks the Egyptian authorities to give this matter the highest priority and urgency”, Foreign Secretary Claudia Ruiz Massieu said at a news conference in Mexico City.

“There is no precedent, in years, of an event like this one that harms our compatriots”.

Eight Mexicans were killed in an apparently mistaken attack by Egyptian security forces that killed 12 people and wounded 10, the sister of a Mexican Reiki healer who was among the dead said on Monday, citing a relative of their slain guide.

Mexican media identified one of the dead as Rafael José Bejarano Rangel, a 40-year-old musician and shaman, whose mother, Marisela Rangel, was wounded in the air strike.

“The company responsible for it is very strict [with security], because they fear losing their permits or being jailed”, she added.

According to the Interior Ministry of Egypt, earlier the same day, IS-affiliated Ansar Bait Al-Maqdis militants attacked Egyptian forces near the location where the Mexican tourists were headed.

However, a local tour guide denied those allegations, telling BBC the group was in an “unrestricted area, on top of sand dunes, trying to get a bird’s eye view”.

Ms Ruiz Massieu has also demanded an investigation, as well as the support of Egyptian authorities for Mexican nationals being transported to Cairo.

At least two Mexicans were killed, Mexico’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Since 2013, Egypt has been facing a surge in the number of attacks mounted by Jihadists linked to IS who have pledged to avenge the removal of Egyptian Islamist President Mohamed Morsi toppled in an army-backed uprising.

The head of the Egyptian Union of Tour Guides, Hassan El Nahla, posted online what appeared to be an itinerary sent to tourism police.

At least 21 Egyptian soldiers were killed in July 2014 when gunmen attacked a military checkpoint in the New Valley Governorate, in the Western Desert.

Islamic State released a statement carried by its supporters on Twitter saying it had repelled an attack by the Egyptian military in the western desert.

After launching spectacular attacks targeting security forces in its North Sinai bastion over the past two years, militants are increasingly adopting tactics similar to the main IS group in Iraq and Syria.

He reckoned it was likely that if a permit was obtained, it had not successfully been “handed to the forces responsible for securing the area, (…) so the army troops did not know tourists were going to pass, and went on with their operation”.

Officials at the company that organised the tour were not immediately available for comment.

Egyptian officials claim the safari convoy had wandered into a restricted area.

Egypt has been battling an increasingly powerful insurgency on the other side of the country, in the northern Sinai Peninsula.