It took 37 minutes for the 10-ton bell of the city’s landmark St Isaac’s Cathedral to ring for each of the 224 victims, as their families stood gathered below. It sounded twice for a 13 year-old girl and her mother, who had worked at St Isaac’s.
About 70 thousand Russian tourists remain stranded in Egypt, as Russia suspended all flights between the two countries on Friday. The move came following the emergence of evidence that the crash may have been caused by an act of terrorism, most probably an explosion in the luggage compartment. An edict confirming the suspension was signed by President Vladimir Putin on Sunday.
The remaining stranded tourists have told the BBC that visible military presence has been upped in the vicinity of the resorts, with armed patrols outside hotels and transport checkpoints at the entries to settlements popular with foreigners.
‘90 percent sure it was a bomb’
Consensus appears to be building in the media on the cause of the crash, though it still remains unclear who was responsible for it.
“The indications and analysis so far of the sound on the black box indicate it was a bomb. We are 90 percent sure it was a bomb,” a member of the Egyptian investigation team told Reuters.
Egypt has been publicly cautious about identifying the cause of the tragedy, amid fears that bad publicity could decimate its key tourism industry, which had been slowly recovering after years of political instability.
Mokadem warned against jumping to conclusions – saying that a fuel explosion, metal fatigue, or other technical failures are “still on the table” as possible causes and that investigators would need to perform a “spectrum analysis” of the sound that preceded the crash. Investigators are also studying CCTV tapes from Sharm el-Sheikh airport to see if there had been any “suspicious activity” by the officers on duty or if their ranks had been infiltrated.
The US and UK have been more unequivocal in placing blame for the explosion on terrorists, with one American official telling CNN that he was “99.9% certain” a bomb had caused the deaths.
Since the Arab Spring in 2011, which destabilized many North African regimes, Sinai has become a base for Muslim extremist groups, many of which have pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda and Islamic State. One of those claimed responsibility for the crash in its immediate aftermath last week.
The Sunday Express reported that the UK’s intelligence agency, GCHQ, had intercepted chatter from jihadists in Sinai, who included English speakers with Birmingham and London accents, prior to the crash.
“There has also been some internet traffic suggesting that there was British involvement in the attack. This was a very sophisticated, carefully planned operation involving many moving parts,” an official told the newspaper.
“We know there are British jihadis in Egypt fighting with members of Islamic State. They were trained in Syria and are now hardened terrorists. Some of the Britons have an electronics background and have been developing some very sophisticated bombs.”
Egypt’s Mokadem complained that this intelligence has not being shared with investigators, but rather leaked to the media, and urged international agencies to offer direct co-operation.
Whatever the results of the investigation, the crash is likely to lead to a major overhaul of airport security, which, as UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said, in the immediate term, “may mean additional costs, it may mean additional delays at airports as people check in.”