Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni says his country will not be intimidated by the deadly explosion that damaged the Italian Consulate building in Cairo.
Police were still investigating the cause of the blast, and there was no claim of responsibility. Getiloni posted a message on his Twitter feed saying “our thoughts are with the people affected and with our personnel. Italy will not let itself be intimidated.”
The blast took place at around 6:20 a.m. on a weekend and the consulate was not open. No Italian personnel were injured, an Italian official in Cairo told The Associated Press.
8:45 a.m.
According to an Associated Press reporter on the scene, the blast heavily damaged several floors of the Italian Consulate building, leaving a gaping hole with bricks spilling from it and its red facade peeling off. Water from a broken pipe flooded the street.
Police ringed off the area with tape before investigators arrived. Charred car parts were scattered onto the street. A charred, baseball-size piece of an engine block was found blown over a row of buildings onto a parallel street.
“I was sleeping when the explosion went off, it blew in my window and when I went outside the air was full of dust,” said Ahmed Hasan, 20, a neighbor whose leg had minor cuts. He said the bomb went off at 6:20 a.m. and that he saw someone with a severed leg.
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8:15 a.m.
Egyptian officials say an explosion in downtown Cairo outside the Italian Consulate has killed at least one person.
Heath Ministry official Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar told The Associated Press that at least one person was killed in the blast.
An Egyptian security official said one civilian and one policeman were also injured. An Italian embassy official said the consulate was closed at the time of the explosion and no staff members were injured. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to brief the media.
The blast ruptured underground water pipes, flooding the area. The security official said the exact cause was still unclear. The state-owned Middle East News Agency quoted a security official as saying investigators are looking into whether an explosive device was placed under a car parked near the building.
The explosion struck one of the busiest intersections in Cairo, a major artery that connects Ramsis Square to the heart of downtown Cairo. Even before 7 a.m. on a weekend in the middle of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the area around the blast would have been crowded with cars, pedestrians and mini-buses.
