CAIRO: No Italian citizens were among the victims of the blast that hit the Italian Consulate in Cairo, said the Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni Saturday.
“There were no Italian victims […] Italy is not intimidated,” Gentiloni said on his Twitter account.
A policeman was killed and nine civilians were injured Saturday morning after a bomb blast hit the consulate in downtown Cairo. Three children, aged between 11 and 13, were among the injured people, said the Egyptian Ministry of Health in a statement.
“A seven-year-old child, suffering bruises in the head, is being hospitalized in the ICU,” the Health Minister spokesperson Hossam Abdel Ghafar told CBC channel Saturday.
Security officials said the engine of the car, used in the blast, was found up on the 6 October Bridge, few meters away from the consulate headquarters. The bomb was placed outside the Italian Consulate and the blast heavily damaged its façade and entrance on Al-Galaa Street.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion.
A team of prosecutors rushed to the scene and will review the materials of the consulate’s surveillance cameras to see if the perpetrators appeared during the blast.