Sinai blast puts hold on Korean Christian pilgrimage

By Kim Tae-gyu

After the deadly bomb attack on a tourist bus full of Koreans on the Sinai Peninsula, Sunday, the country’s Christian pilgrims are cancelling trips to Egypt in line with a foreign ministry directive.

Hana Tour, the No. 1 travel agency here, said Monday that it had scrapped all trips to Egypt after the terrorist assault, which claimed four lives while injuring more than a dozen, and has no definite schedule to resume them.

“Almost all tours to Egypt are taken by Christian pilgrims, who typically go to a series of sacred places in Egypt, Jordan and Israel,” a Hana Tour representative said by telephone.

“Some of our customers who reserved our programs for the three countries have called off their trips. Those who want to forge ahead will have to visit Israel and Jordan, while skipping Egypt.”

He added that the Seoul-based company has no plans to restart pilgrimage tours to Egypt for the time being. “Chances are that they will not be restored by the end of this year in consideration of the serious situation there.”

Small-sized travel companies dedicated to pilgrimage trips, like Bible Tour and Sungjee Tour, also said that they would exclude Egypt in their programs — their clients will visit just Jordan and Israel.

Some churches have cancelled their entire trips.

The bus at issue, which carried 31 Korean churchgoers, two Korean guides and an Egyptian driver, was blown up in the Egyptian border town of Taba on the Sinai Peninsula on its way to Israel.

The tourists from the largest church in Korea’s central city of Jincheon were making a religious pilgrimage involving Egypt and Israel before being attacked by a man in his 20s, according to the foreign ministry.

Although the blast seems to have not specifically targeted Koreans, it prompted the government to issue a special travel advisory for the Sinai, requiring Koreans to leave the risky area and not to visit there.

Experts raise the possibility that similar terrorist incidents may continue as anti-interim government forces are believed to be behind the attack — wanting to undermine Egypt’s tourist trade, which serves as a slim lifeline for its struggling economy.

The ouster of President Mohamed Mursi in July and the subsequent military crackdown on Islamists generated many dissidents, and that has created grave security concerns in the turbulent country.

“Tourists are very easy targets for terrorists, who are now looking for such soft targets as security measures are strengthened for government agencies and foreign embassies,” said a professor at a Seoul university.

“Tourists are the archetypical soft targets. Since many Korean Christian pilgrims visit Egypt, particularly the conflict-prone Sinai Peninsula, strong caution is needed.”

Approximately 3.5 million people visited Israel last year, with most of them Christian pilgrims, and around 1 percent of them were Koreans, many of whom also paid a visit to the Sinai Peninsula.

The Israeli tourism ministry also confirmed that about 30,000 Koreans visited the nation last year.