Girl killed and 22 hurt as school party caught up in Eygpt bomb blast

Egyptian police were today questioning three suspects over the bombing of a Cairo market that killed a 17-year-old French girl. Seventeen other French teenagers, some as young as 13, were also among the injured when the bomb exploded in the crowded market on Sunday.

The teenagers were part of a group of 54 schoolchildren from Paris, aged from 13 to 17, visiting the bazaar before heading home. The dead girl, from the Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret, died in hospital. Another young man of 17 is among the six people in a serious condition. The bomb went off at the Khan al-Khalili market close to the historic Hussein mosque in a medieval part of the Egyptian capital. A second bomb was discovered by police after the explosion and was safely detonated. A total of 22 people were injured in the blast including the French children, a German tourist, three Saudis and three Egyptians. The three suspects were detained near the market shortly after the blast, police said. It happened at an open-air hotel cafe packed with tourists. "Three people there were arrested on the site as suspects after the attack," Agence France-Presse news agency quoted a police official as saying. "Others are being questioned as witnesses."

Police said, the BBC reported, that they thought the device had been thrown from a balcony. But there have also been conflicting reports that the bomb, which is believed to have been home-made, may have been left under a bench.

Those injured in the blast included more than a dozen French nationals, four Germans and three Egyptians, according to police. Six are thought to be in a serious condition. The French foreign ministry confirmed the death of one of its citizens, a 17-year-old girl.

Montasser el-Zayat, a lawyer who defended Islamic extremists, told Arabic news channel al-Jazeera the attack might be linked to anger over the recent Israeli offensive in Gaza. "The nature of the explosion looks like an act carried out by young, inexperienced amateurs whose emotions were inflamed by the events of Gaza," Mr el-Zayat was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying. "The blast was so powerful that the earth shook underneath us," an eyewitness told Egypt's Nile News TV.

Written by Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children