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Indonesians warned against travelling to turbulent Egypt
The government has issued a travel warning for citizens planning to travel to Egypt following the July 3 military coup that removed former president Mohamed Mursi
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he government has issued a travel warning for citizens planning to travel to Egypt following the July 3 military coup that removed former president Mohamed Mursi.
'Having monitored the development of the situation in Egypt, the Foreign Ministry called on Indonesian citizens planning to travel to Egypt, particularly to Sinai Peninsula, to delay their plans if it's not very urgent until security conditions in Egypt are stabilized,' read the Foreign Ministry statement made available to The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
Telephone lines for the ministry's directorate of the Middle East (+62213849045) and the Indonesian Embassy in Cairo (+20105185795 or +201022229989) are open for those needing further information.
There are some 5,000 Indonesians residing in Egypt, many of whom are students. There are no reports of any Indonesians being harmed.
Since Mursi's fall, his Muslim Brotherhood and its allies have taken to the streets vowing to continue protests until he is reinstated.
Clashes have erupted multiple times between the Islamists and Mursi opponents or security forces in Cairo and other cities. Around 150 people have been killed, mostly from the Mursi camp.
Throughout the violence, the military and its allied media have depicted the protesters as a dangerous armed movement but the Brotherhood and its allies say their protests are peaceful.
Islamic militants stepped up attacks on security forces in Sinai Peninsula since Mursi's fall, killing 16 soldiers and policemen and 11 civilians and raising fears of a wave of militant violence.
On Wednesday, suspected militants killed two soldiers and wounded three others in four separate attacks in Sinai. In a separate incident, three suspected militants were killed when their explosive-laden car blew up ' apparently prematurely ' just outside el-Arish, a coastal city in northern Sinai and a stronghold of radical Islamists, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press, Associated Press reported.
In the early hours of Wednesday, a bomb went off outside the main police headquarters in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura, wounding 19 people. Presidential spokesman Ahmed el-Muslemani branded the attack an act of terrorism.
The military chief who ousted the president, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, called on the public on Wednesday to take to the streets to give him and the police a mandate to tackle 'violence and terrorism'.
On Thursday, the Tamarod youth group behind the wave of protests that led to the military's ouster of Mursi says it is backing the army chief's call for mass demonstrations on Friday.
The group urged Egyptians across the nation to take to the streets in support of Sissi.
'Whoever wants to genuinely complete the revolution must be out in the squares and in all the provinces,' Tamarod spokesman, Mahmoud Badr said.
Also on Thursday, the Brotherhood's leader made a sharp attack against Sissi, saying his ousting of president Mursi was worse than destroying the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine.
Mohammed Badie's unusually harsh language underlines the anger felt by Islamists over the military coup.
Badie, who has an arrest warrant against him for allegedly inciting violence, also called Sissi a 'traitor' and urged him to repent. 'AP
