Christians Targeted For Persecution In Egypt; Sparks Coptic Families to Flee Sinai
Fearing attacks by Islamic State militants, Coptic Christian families fled their homes from the volatile northern part of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt to Ismailiya City, 115 kilometers northeast of the capital Cairo. The evacuation was prompted following a series of killings in recent weeks.
The latest incident is the murder of a plumber on Thursday. The New York Times reported that militants stormed a house in el-Arish town and shot Kammel Youssef in front of his pregnant wife and children, then calmly drank a bottle of Pepsi before taking off.
Youssef is the seventh fatality in this volatile region between Jan. 30 and Thursday. The day before, militants also shot dead a Coptic Christian man and burned his son alive in the same town. Three others were shot earlier in Sinai gangland style and another one was beheaded, according to Reuters.
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Christians have been targeted for persecution but the violence was few and far between, usually involving the burning of homes, crop razing and attacks on churches. "Things were never this bad," said a man from El Arish. "They killed a couple of church leaders in the past, but the killings were far apart. Now we are told they are were making lists of all the Copts there," he added.
Before the escalation of violence, the Islamic State released a video announcing on Monday last week stating that it had launched an attack against the Orthodox Copts which make up 10 percent of Egypt's 90 million people and the largest Christian community in Middle East.
A priest lamented that the militants have forced displacement among them. "You feel like this is all meant to force us to leave our homes," he said. "We became like refugees." For her part, researcher Mina Thabet of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms said: "They want to send a message that nobody is safe."
