A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Belgian Tourist Stabbed in Aswan

For the first time in years, outside of Sinai, [well, I'm accurate about the "stabbed" part, but forgot the February 2009 bombing near Sayyidna Hussein in Cairo] a tourist has been stabbed in Egypt, a Belgian tourist in Aswan. Details are sparse. (I have no idea why the website story is illustrated with a picture of Abu Simbel, which is not in Aswan.) (On second thought, they moved Abu Simbel once, and since I haven't been there lately, perhaps . . . nah.)

Outside of terrorist bombings in Sharm al-Sheikh, Dhahab, and other sites on the "Sinai Riveira" (easy targets since many of the tourists are Israeli and the attackers have the Sinai to fall back into), attacks on tourists have been rare since the 1990s, particularly the attack on the Deir al-Bahri temple at Luxor in 1997, though there have been a handful of incidents in Cairo and elsewhere. And this may turn out to just be a robbery or something, but it's the first in a while in the Nile Valley.

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