The souvenir stalls at the Karnak temple in the southern Egyptian city of Luxor are crammed with pharaonic statues and other trinkets but for Nasser business could not be worse. ‘It is a catastrophe,’ he says a day after a foiled bombing and shooting attack at the ancient site, afraid that tourists will never return and that he will be deprived of his bread and butter. ‘Of course this incident will affect our lives,’ says Nasser, 47, a father of five who depends on sales of souvenirs to raise his family. All around him, his colleagues shake their heads in agreement because, they say, tourism is their only source of income. The police say they prevented a ‘massacre’ in Karnak Wednesday when assailants widely believed to be jihadists tried to carry out an attack at the ancient site. One of them killed himself by setting off the explosive vest he was wearing, while police killed an accomplice
Read More: Luxor foiled attack a ‘catastrophe’ for Egypt tourism