At least 41 people were killed, including at least 10 children, and 16 others were injured in a fire that broke out Sunday in a Coptic Christian church in Egypt's capital Cairo, church officials said.

Several trapped congregants jumped from the upper floors of the Martyr Abu Sefein church to try to escape the intense flames, witnesses said.

"Suffocation, suffocation, all of them dead," said a distraught witness, who only gave a partial name, Abu Bishoy.

Sixteen people were injured, including four police officers involved in the rescue effort.

Witnesses said there were many children inside the four-story building, which had two day care facilities, when the fire broke out.

"There are children, we didn't know how to get to them," said Abu Bishoy. "And we don't know whose son this is, or whose daughter that is. Is this possible?"

A hospital document obtained by The Associated Press (AP) said 20 bodies, including 10 children, were taken to the Imbaba public hospital.

Three were siblings, twins aged 5 and a 3-year-old, it said. The church bishop, Abdul Masih Bakhit, was also among the dead at the hospital morgue.

Twenty-one bodies were taken to other hospitals. It was not immediately known if children were among them.

Mousa Ibrahim, a spokesperson for the Coptic Orthodox Church, told the AP that 5-year-old triplets, their mother, grandmother and an aunt were among those killed.

Witness Emad Hanna said a church worker managed to get some children out of the church day care facilities.

"We went upstairs and found people dead. And we started to see from outside that the smoke was getting bigger, and people want to jump from the upper floor," Hanna said.

"We found the children," some dead, some alive, he added.

The country's health minister blamed the smoke and a stampede as people attempted to flee the fire for causing the fatalities.

It was one of the worst fire tragedies in Egypt in recent years.

The cause of the blaze was not immediately known. Police said an initial investigation blamed an electrical short-circuit.

Fifteen firefighting vehicles were dispatched to the scene to put out the flames while ambulances ferried the casualties to nearby hospitals. However, the church is located on a narrow street in one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Cairo. Sunday is the first working day of the week, and traffic jams clog the streets in Imbama and surrounding areas in the morning.

Some relatives criticized what they said were delays in the arrival of ambulances and firefighters. "They came after people died. ... They came after the church burned down," shouted one woman standing outside the smoldering church.

Countering the criticism, the Health Ministry said ambulances arrived at the site in two minutes after the blaze was reported and transferred at least 55 injured to hospitals.

Fire services later said the blaze had been brought under control.

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi declared on his Facebook page that "I have mobilized all state services to ensure that all measures are taken."

He spoke by phone with the Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II to offer his condolences, the president’s office said.

Copts are the largest Christian community in the Middle East, making up at least 10 million of Egypt's 103 million people.

The minority has suffered attacks and complained of discrimination in the majority Muslim north African country, the Arab world's most populous.

Copts have faced violence, particularly after el-Sissi overthrew democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi in 2013, with churches, schools and homes burnt down.

El-Sissi, the first Egyptian president to attend the Coptic Christmas Mass every year, recently appointed a Coptic judge to head the Constitutional Court for the first time in history.

Egypt has suffered several deadly fires in recent years. In March 2021, at least 20 people died in a blaze in a textile factory in the eastern suburbs of Cairo.

In 2020, two hospital fires claimed the lives of 14 COVID-19 patients.