video transcript

New Year's Eve mass in Alexandria is a solemn affair as worshippers remember a deadly church bombing here. Coptic Christians in Egypt held a candlelight vigil in honour of the 21 people killed when a suicide bomber attacked the Qadiseen, or Two Saints Church in 2011. The New Year's Day attack on the church also left at least 70 wounded. Some members of Egypt's Muslim majority also attended the memorial. (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) MUSLIM WOMAN PARTICIPATING IN VIGIL MONA ABDUL, SAYING: "We have come to be in solidarity with our Christian brothers and sisters and to share in their sorrow because, of course, this incident pained us all. And we are all Egyptians and we should love one another." Coptic Pope Tawadros II was received with cheers when he arrived to lead midnight mass. Sectarian tensions have heightened in Egypt with the rise of Islamists to power following the country's 2011 revolution.