Egyptian fighter jets carried out strikes on Friday directed at camps in Libya which Cairo says have been training militants who killed dozens of Christians earlier in the day.
28 Coptic Christians, including ten children, were killed in a shooting attack on a deserted road about 62 miles northwest of the city of Minya, Egypt on Friday and at least 23 others were injured, some critically.
"A security detachment from the Islamic State carried out an attack yesterday in Minya", the group's self-styled Amaq news agency reported.
A small caravan comprised of two buses and a truck making their way to a monastery south of Cairo were attacked by a team of 10 masked terrorists wearing military uniforms from "Sinai Province", the Egyptian branch of the Islamic State (ISIS/Da'esh) terrorist organization.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he had ordered strikes against what he called terrorist camps, declaring in a televised address that states that sponsored terrorism would be punished. In December, a suicide bomber targeted a Cairo church.
TheGuardian.com noted that "Egypt's Coptic church has traditionally preserved close ties to the Egyptian government, seeking protection as the country's largest minority".
Copts have long faced discrimination in the Muslim-majority country, but tensions between the two groups have been especially high in the last several years, especially after the Copt-backed Sissi led a military coup that ousted the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi. Egypt, in the meantime, has pushed for lifting the global arms embargo against Libya, hoping that such action would give its main ally in Libya, Gen. Khalifa Hifter, a decisive advantage in his three-year campaign against Libya's various Islamic militant groups.
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Isis has targeted numerous religious minorities including Coptic Christians - who have been beheaded in Libya - and Sufi and Shia Muslims, who have been massacred across the Middle East. This is the fourth such attack on Coptic Christians since December.
Monks look at the view following a gunmen attack against a group of Coptic Christians travelling to a monastery in southern Egypt, in Minya, May 26, 2017.
The victims, many of them found were sprawled dead in the sand, appeared to have been forced to kneel before being shot in the head, Coptic priest Hedra Rashid said. A telegram from the Vatican read: "Deeply saddened to learn of the barbaric attack in central Egypt and of the tragic loss of life and injury caused by this senseless act of hatred".
"They asked them one by one to deny their Christian faith, but they all refused", said Mr Hedra, who spoke to survivors.
Germany stands in solidarity "in such stressful times" with Egyptian Copts, as well as its Muslims in the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan, the statement added.
The people of Egypt can count on Canada's friendship and support, Trudeau said, offering Canada's full assistance to Egyptian authorities.
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