Isis has claimed responsibility for twin bomb blasts that targeted two Egyptian churches packed with Palm Sunday worshippers, killing at least 43 people and wounding scores of others in one of the worst ever attacks on the country’s Coptic Christian minority.

The first bomb struck inside a church in Tanta, a town in the Nile Delta north of Cairo, killing 27. State media said the bomb was placed in the first pew of the Mar Girgis church, and images showed that several lines of benches had been destroyed.

The second explosion, an apparent suicide bombing, took place in front of the Mar Morcos church in Alexandria, as Pope Tawadros II, the head of the Coptic Church, presided over Sunday mass. It killed at least 16 people, including three policemen who tried to stop a man wearing an explosive belt entering the church, the interior ministry said.