Egypt’s biggest zoo was late to open on Monday due to a delay in the arrival of explosives experts and police dogs tasked with searching it for bombs on one of the park’s busiest days of the year.
Visitors lined up in front of its gate waiting for the police team’s arrival on the first day of Muslim Eid holidays marking the end of Ramadan and a month of fasting, reported Al-Ahram Arabic news website.
The Giza Zoo gets packed with visitors on national and religious holidays.
Egyptian police have been targeted by bombs and shootings since their bloody dispersal of a Muslim Brotherhood sit-in in support of ousted president Mohamed Morsi in August 2013. A number of improvised bombs have detonated in public areas in 2014.
Police claim to have defused hundreds of bombs. Several policemen died in July while defusing bombs at Egypt’s presidential palace on the anniversary of Morsi’s ouster.
A heavy police presence was reported by Al-Ahram at Giza’s Nahda Square adjacent to the zoo, where a secondary sit-in was dispersed in August 2013. Extra security forces were deployed at the zoo itself.