Alwaght- Masked gunmen on Friday attacked two buses and a truck carrying Coptic Christians in Egypt, killing more than 28 people and wounding dozens.
Egyptian officials say children were among the dead travelling to the Saint Samuel Monastery in the Minya province, about 220km south of the capital.
Security forces are pursuing the attackers arrived in three pick-up trucks and opened fire on the vehicles carrying the Christians before fleeing from the scent. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
"They used automatic weapons," Essam el-Bedawi, Minya governor, told state media.
Following the attack, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for a meeting with security officials.
Egypt's Christian minority, which makes up about 10 percent of the country's population, has repeatedly been targeted by armed groups.
In April, at least 45 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in two separate suicide bomb attacks on churches in the cities of Tanta and Alexandria during Palm Sunday ceremonies.
The attacks were claimed by ISIS terrorist groups which is active in Egypt especially in the Sinai Peninsula region.
Egypt has had an imposed nationwide three-month state of emergency after the April bombings, with the option to extend for another three months dependent on a parliament vote.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement has joined the international community in condemning the attack on innocent Christians in Minya, terming the incident a sinful crime.
In a statement, Hezbollah, that is fighting terrorists in Syria, said that this crime is added to the record of the murderous gangs whose acts are devoid of the human sense, violate the sanctity of the human soul that God has guaranteed. Hezbollah added that they were painfully grieved by the human losses, calling for a serious and sincere stand in face of terrorism which uses religion to overlay its crimes and urged for a decisive fight against the terrorists and their ideological and financial supporters.
