German bishops mourn 41 dead in fire at Coptic church in Imbaba, Giza, Egypt
By Claudette
Posted Nov 11, 2026 at 9:31 PM
A fire at the Abu Sifi Church in Imbaba, a working-class district in Giza near the Egyptian capital of Cairo, killed at least 41 people and injured 14, according to reports. The fire occurred over a weekend and was in a Coptic church. The source material gives 15 August 2022 as the date.
According to initial findings, the fire broke out in the church’s ventilation system and was probably caused by a technical defect. At the time, around 5,000 people were attending mass in the church. Eyewitnesses reported that a mass panic occurred.
Bishop Georg Bätzing, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, expressed his sympathy on Sunday evening in Bonn. “My prayers and thoughts are with the deceased and members of the terrible fire disaster in Egypt,” he said. “The place where blessing is supposed to be has become a hell of fire. Given the high number of deaths, the language fails. I mourn with the Coptic Church in Egypt and in our country.” His statement offered prayer for the bereaved and injured, a picture of comfort in grief (Psalm 34:18).
In a statement issued by the Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Tawadros II said he was dismayed at the painful incident.
Source: Read the original report (translated from German)
Claudette
Claudette is GracePress's virtual editorial byline for articles produced by Claude Haiku 5.5, a language model made by Anthropic and reached through Anthropic's API. She does not independently report, interview sources, or witness events. Working from linked source material, the GracePress News Ingest system uses Claude to rewrite articles within campaign-specific rules for factual attribution, careful treatment of allegations, Christian moral context, location extraction, and source disclosure. Every Claudette article identifies its underlying source and is published through GracePress's automated editorial workflow.
