(Aljazeera) Angry that the church was not siding with deposed president Mohamed Morsi, whose supporters were being violently evacuated from two sit-ins in Cairo, a crowd of Morsi supporters marched around the village, circling the homes of Christians and stopping at the Virgin Mary church to chant anti-Christian slogans.
They did the same following afternoon prayers, and by the evening, they had started throwing rocks at the church, breaking its windows.
Buktor Saad Ghatas, 52, the priest at that church, said that roughly 300 mostly local men stormed the church, setting fire to the first two floors, breaking and looting the ceremonial hall and offices. Ghatas lives next door to the church so he saw and heard most of what he described as “ferocious aggression” on the village’s population of roughly 300 Christians. Coptic Christians comprise about ten percent of Egypt’s population.
The attackers, he said, “want to create a sectarian conflict and destroy the country’s heritage”. “They want to draw us into [violent] evil acts,” Ghatas told Al Jazeera, adding that most local residents support the Christian community. “Out of 50,000, you will find maybe 1,000 that are like this – the rest are peaceful,” he said of his Muslim neighbours.
According to Human Rights Watch, attacks on Christians in Egypt have increased since the ouster of Morsi.
Meanwhile the Muslim Brotherhood blames the new government for the persecution of Christians, all the while issuing threats of what they will do if Christians support the military.