Fourteen people remained unaccounted for yesterday following the devastating bombings at Egypt's Sharm al-Sheik resort, officials confirmed -- while security sources said some 30 arrests had been made.
The sources said all 30 or so people detained were men in their 20s or 30s. None had been charged. It is not uncommon in Egypt following such terrorist acts for security to pick up dozens of persons who were in the vicinity. Many are released the same day.
Ministry of Tourism spokesperson Hala el-Khatib said 14 people remained unaccounted for according to a count taken at the resort's hotels.
Minister of Health Mohammed Awwad Tageldin meanwhile insisted the number killed was 63 and not 88 as reported by some media.
He was speaking at Cairo airport on returning from Sharm al-Sheik where he was following up on the condition of what he said were the 66 injured remaining in hospital for treatment.
There have been ongoing discrepancies in the casualty figures. Hospital sources had earlier put the number of dead at 88, while the prime minister's office put it at 75.
Tourism Ministry spokesperson el-Khatib said 34 bodies had not been identified, and some may be foreigners.
El-Khatib had earlier confirmed that a Czech and an Italian were among the dead, who were mostly local people. Saeed Abdel Fattah, manager of Sharm al-Sheik international hospital, was quoted as stating that two Britons were also killed.
Many tourists were making their way back to their mainly western European homelands as quickly as possible yesterday, but many were also insisting on staying in a spirit of defiance.
Arab world reacts
The Arab press meanwhile urged world's Muslims yesterday to unite against terror, and roundly condemned the Sharm al-Sheik bombings as barbaric attacks that do nothing to serve their cause.
"The deadly bomb blasts in Sharm el-Sheikh are another despicable act of faithless and cowardly people," charged the English-language Jordan Times.
Jordan's independent newspaper Al-Ghad said: "Killing innocent people in Sharm el-Sheik will not contribute to the liberation of Palestine, and the killing of innocent Iraqis will not accelerate the American withdrawal."
Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, a Lebanese authority in Shiite Islam, published a fatwa or religious decree, saying: "We forbid barbaric acts against innocents who have nothing to do with the political demands of terrorists."
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