2020 Photo Contest, Spot News, 3rd Prize

Deadly Bomb Blast in Cairo

Photographer

Oliver Weiken

Deutsche Presse-Agentur

05 August, 2019

A firefighter dowses a car set alight by the blaze that followed a car bomb attack in Cairo, Egypt.

At least 20 people were killed and 47 injured in a terrorist attack outside a cancer hospital in the Kasr al-Aini area of central Cairo, Egypt, on 5 August. Egypt’s Ministry of Interior said a car carrying a bomb drove into oncoming traffic and collided with three others, triggering the explosion and a fire that forced the evacuation of nearby buildings, including the hospital. Interior Minister Mahmoud Tawfik said that the car had been packed with explosives intended for use in terrorist attacks elsewhere. The Egyptian government put blame for the attack on the Islamist Hasm Movement, a violent breakaway faction of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was once the country’s largest Islamist group, but has been banned in Egypt since 2013. The Muslim Brotherhood itself has repeatedly distanced itself from the Hasm Movement and its violence. The Hasm Movement has carried out a string of attacks in Cairo in the past, but mostly against security forces and not civilians.

About the photographer

Oliver Weiken

Oliver Weiken began his career in 1996 while still a student, with the local newspaper ‘Warsteiner Anzeiger’ and then with Bongarts Sportfotografie shortly after. ...

Technical information

Shutter Speed
1/50
Focal length
24mm
F-Stop
1.4
ISO
3200
Camera
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV

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