Foreign Affairs warns Canadians against travel to Egypt
Posted August 15, 2013 5:22 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA – The Foreign Affairs Department is warning against all non-essential travel to Egypt, except for Red Sea coastal resorts.
But even there, the department advises Canadians to be cautious as violence linked to the crackdown on supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi is evident outside Cairo.
The warning came as Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird expressed “deep concern” over the violence and called on Egypt to implement much-needed changes to ease tensions.
Baird urged both sides to avoid violence and “engage in a meaningful dialogue for the good of all Egyptians.”
Officials said nearly 300 people have been killed in the violence — including more than 40 police officers — and more than two-thousand people have been injured.
Peter Nasr, a 34-year-old Egyptian Canadian and Coptic Christian living in Ottawa, said he feels powerless to help family members who are trapped in the troubled country.
He said like everybody else, he is “stuck idly by and watching.”
The violence erupted when police swept through the two sit-in sites in support of Morsi.
Backed by helicopters, police fired tear gas and used bulldozers to plow into barricades at the two camps in Cairo where Morsi supporters had been camped since before he was ousted by the military on July 3.
