Copt Killed in Friday Attack on Alex Churches

Copt Killed in Friday Attack on Alex Churches

By Malak Labib

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AFP) -- Three knife-wielding Muslims attacked worshipers at
Coptic churches in Egypt's second city of Alexandria on Friday, killing one
and wounding at least 12, police and medical sources said.
The assailants,
each armed with two knives, mounted almost simultaneous attacks on churchgoers
in three separate neighborhoods and were later arrested, a police official
said on condition of anonymity.

"The attacker stormed the church armed with a knife and shouted 'There is
no God but Allah' and 'Allah is the greatest' before stabbing the worshipers,"
one of the Mar Girgis church employees said.

"We closed the doors of the church as soon as he started attacking the
worshipers and we fought back with sticks but he tried to flee through one of
the church's underground passages," said the witness, who asked to be named
only as Ibrahim.

An hour after the incident, a mass was being held to appease the
neighborhood's shocked Coptic worshipers. Security forces sealed off the areas
where the attacks took place and set up checkpoints across the Mediterranean
city.

The simultaneous attacks on Egypt's minority Coptic Christian community
marred the run-up to the Orthodox Easter celebrations starting in a week's
time and were the worst outbreak of sectarian violence in Egypt in six months.

Friday's victim, Noshi Atta Girgis, died of his wounds in hospital, a
medical source said. He was among at least three people attacked at the
Quidissin church east of Alexandria.

The other assault took place at the Adra church in the eastern suburb of
Abu Kir. At least three people were said to have sustained serious injuries.

In front of the Mar Girgis church, a distressed woman called for the
attacks to be avenged.

"They will see. Do they think we're cowards? They will see that we have the
means to defend ourselves," she shouted, as several other worshipers were in a
state of hysteria.

"We cannot enter their mosques and kill them, yet they can come to our
churches and kill us without any problem. Where are the police and the
government? Do they think our blood is cheaper than theirs?" cried another
woman, Nadia Lofti. "The people who do this want us all to convert to Islam.
We are a minority and the government should give us more protection," she
added.

Egyptian Copts in the overwhelmingly Muslim country typically attend weekly
mass on Friday, which is also the Muslim holy day and marks the beginning of
the weekend. They make up an estimated 10 percent of Egypt's population of 73
million and complain of discrimination by the regime.

Coptic faithful, religious leaders and intellectuals expressed fear of
further harassment following the spectacular surge of the country's leading
Islamist opposition party in November-December parliamentary elections.

The deadliest recent clashes occurred in October 2005 when Muslim
protestors attacked a church in Alexandria that they accused of having hosted
a play that they deemed offensive to Islam and killed three people. A
19-year-old Muslim who stabbed a nun during the rioting was sentenced to three
years in jail in February.

A string of lesser incidents have been reported in different parts of the
country in recent months, fueling fears of growing sectarian strife.

In January, a Coptic Christian was badly wounded when Muslims tried to
torch a house that Copts were using as a church without approval from the
authorities. He later died of his wounds.

 

Sally Bishai
Editor-In-Chief
:.X:.Culture Magazine
www.xculturemag.com

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