Over 100 Coptic Christians were killed in 2017 in a wave of deadly attacks by militants belonging to, or inspired by, the Islamic State group, which has vowed to “wipe them out”. Egypt’s Copts, who account for around 10 per cent of the population, were also targeted in 2013, after they were perceived as supporting the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government. Scores of churches across the country were attacked and burned.
The US should make further cuts in foreign aid to Egypt if its government does not tackle the escalation in violence against the country’s Coptic Christians, an imam has said. “World leaders cannot continue to ignore the ongoing persecution of Coptic Christians,” Imam Tawhidi, president of the Islamic Association of […]
Houses of Copts have again come under attack by a mob in a village in Minya Governorate on 31 August, as a protest against Copts praying in a home owned by one of them, since there is no village church, Coptic news site Watani reports. World Watch Monitor last week […]
A Coptic community in Egypt’s Minya governorate, whose church was closed in July following protests by local Muslims, continues to be a target of mob attacks and hostility. The only Coptic church in Ezbet Sultan Pasha village, 250km south of Cairo, where about 20 per cent of the population is […]
For the first time in Egypt’s history a Coptic Christian woman has been appointed as provincial governor. The new governor of Damietta, Dr. Manal Awad Mikhael, is also the second female governor ever to be appointed in Egypt, reports the BBC. Mikhael, 51, was sworn in by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi […]
A Coptic diocese in Upper Egypt last week saw its eighth church closed following attacks by Muslim villagers protesting against the church being legally recognised. Across Egypt, there are thousands of buildings informally acknowledged as churches. Exactly two years ago, the government introduced a new common law granting church buildings the […]
The string of attacks on Coptic Christians last year in the coastal Egyptian city of El-Arish, which caused a mass exodus, followed warnings “to leave or to die”, say relatives of the Coptic vet who was killed by suspected IS militants. Bahgat William Zakhar, 40, was shot dead by a number […]
A young Christian boy from a small village in Egypt’s Minya region, who saw his father killed by Islamic militants, dreams of becoming a police officer so he can prevent similar attacks. Mina was only ten years old when he and his brother Marco, aged 14, saw their father murdered, […]
A suicide attack on a Coptic church in north Cairo, Egypt, was thwarted on Saturday, 12 August, reports Coptic news site Watani. A man wearing a suicide vest detonated the bomb about 250 metres from the Church of the Holy Virgin in the Mostorod district. He was killed instantly, as […]
A Coptic bishop has been found dead inside a desert monastery in Egypt’s Beheira governorate, with the circumstances of his death still unknown*, reports AP. Bishop Epiphanius, 64, was the head of St. Macarius Monastery, which is situated near the town of Wadi El Naturn, 100km northwest of Cairo, and […]
A Coptic Christian whose allegedly blasphemous Facebook post caused riots in his Egyptian village earlier this month is scheduled to appear in court today (24 July) on charges of contempt of religion.* Abdo Adel, 43, from Menbal village in Minya governorate, has been in detention since his arrest on 6 July […]