© Nile News / AFP
The group of between eight and 10 gunmen approached the convoy in three four-wheel-drive pickup trucks before opening fire, according to local media reports and the Egyptian Interior Ministry.
Security chiefs established a perimeter around the scene and launched a hunt for the attackers, setting up dozens of roadblocks in the area and sending out patrols to scour the desert road.
The Grand Imam of al-Azhar Ahmad al-Tayeb believes the attack was intended to destabilize the country. Al-Azhar is a center of Islamic learning in Egypt that dates back more than 1,000 years.
"I call on Egyptians to unite in the face of this brutal terrorism," al-Tayeb said while on a visit to Germany, as cited by Reuters.
The shooting, which occurred on the eve of Ramadan, happened as the victims traveled from Beni Suef province to the Coptic Orthodox Anba Samuel monastery near the southern city of Minya, 250km (155 miles) south of Cairo, according to local security sources, cited by Haaretz.
There is no immediate claim of responsibility. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called an emergency meeting of security officials in the wake of Friday's attack, Reuters reports.
Ambulances dispatched from the cities of Beni Suef and Minya are transporting victims to local hospitals in Adwa, Minya, Maghagha, according to local news outlet Youm7.
The US Embassy in Cairo warned of an imminent but unspecified terrorist attack on the night of May 24.
"The Embassy is aware of a potential threat posted on a website by the Hassm Group, a known terrorist organization, suggesting some kind of unspecified action this evening," the Egypt mission said in a statement.
© U.S. Embassy & Consulate in Egypt
On April 9, twin suicide bombs targeting Coptic Christians killed at least 44 people and injured more than 118 in Tanta and Alexandria. Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Coptic Christians make up roughly 10 percent of Egypt's population of 92 million.
Maybe the real lesson here is that no matter where you are, whether it be on bus holding hands and singing Kumaya, or whether it be at a concert in Manchester England, no one is safe from what is manifestly organized mayhem and that only the silly, the foolish, the gullible, the stupid, the meek, and the oblivious now go wandering out the front door without some means of defending themselves, and laws or no laws, ultimately your own safety and security is now totally dependent upon your own willingness to protect yourself, to defend the lives of others, and to stand up for being a human being with God Given rights to do just that.