CAIRO: An attack Friday on Egypt’s Coptic Christians in which gunmen opened fire outside a church and at a store in the south Cairo suburb of Helwan, killing at least eight Copts and a policeman, is the latest episode in what have now become regular assaults by militants on the country’s Coptic community.
Egypt’s Copts have long been a prime target of extremists. They were struck by a massive church bombing just weeks before the country’s 2011 Arab Spring uprising, and militants focused on them in particular during a crackdown in the 1990s.
But the past six months have been particularly bloody.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt’s Coptic Christians in recent years:
n Dec. 29: A gunman on a motorcycle opens fire outside a church and at a store in a south Cairo suburb, killing at least eight Coptic Christians, and a policeman. The assault took place early Friday when the gunman tried to breach the church’s security cordon. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
n Dec. 22: Hundreds of demonstrators attack an unlicensed church south of Cairo wounding three people. The incident took place after Friday prayers when demonstrators gathered outside the building and stormed it.
The demonstrators chanted anti-Christian slogans and called for the church’s demolition. The demonstrators destroyed the church’s fittings and assaulted Christians inside before security personnel dispersed them.
n May 26:Masked militants riding in three SUVs open fire on a bus packed with Coptic Christians, including children, south of the capital Cairo, killing at least 28 people and wounding 22 others.
The assault occurs as the bus is traveling to the remote monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor in Maghagha, in Minya governorate.
No group immediately claims responsibility for the attack, the fourth to target Christians since December of the previous year, but it bears the hallmarks of Daesh’s local affiliate. The attack comes on the eve of Ramadan.
n April 9: Twin suicide bombings strike churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II in Alexandria’s St. Mark’s cathedral.
n February: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by Daesh militants.
The group’s North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month. Daesh’s affiliate releases a video vowing to step up attacks against Christians, describing them as their “favorite prey.”
It showcased a deadly December attack on the church adjacent to Cairo’s Saint Mark’s Cathedral.
n December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt’s main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo claimed by Daesh kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory.
The high death toll serves as a grim reminder of the difficulties of Egypt’s struggle to restore security and stability after nearly six years of turmoil following the 2011 uprising.
n July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there have been 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident per month. A mob stabs 27-year old Coptic Christian Fam Khalaf to death in the southern City of Minya over a personal feud.
n May 2016: A mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumors spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the aforementioned man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by a mob to humiliate her.
n New Year’s Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers depart a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
No suspects have been named and the case remains unresolved. Attacks pick up in the aftermath of Egypt’s Arab Spring uprising that begins weeks later, then even more so after the army overthrows an elected but divisive president in 2013.
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Egypt has a history of attacks on Christians
Egypt has a history of attacks on Christians
Basic services resume at Syrian camp housing Daesh families as government takes control
AL HOL: Basic services at a camp in northeast Syria holding thousands of women and children linked to Daesh group are returning to normal after government forces captured the facility from Kurdish fighters, a United Nations official said on Thursday.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, that had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Celine Schmitt, a spokesperson for the UN refugees agency told The Associated Press that the interruption of services occurred for two days during the fighting around the camp.
She said a UNHCR team visited the recaptured came to establish “very quickly the delivery of basic services, humanitarian services,” including access to health centers. Schmitt said that as of Jan. 23, they were able to deliver bread and water inside the camp.
Schmitt, speaking in Damascus, said the situation at Al-Hol camp has been calm and some humanitarian actors have also been distributing food parcels. She said that government has named a new administrator for the camp.
Camp residents moved to Iraq
At its peak after the defeat of Daesh in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of Daesh members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
The current population is about 24,000, including 14,500 Syrians and nearly 3,000 Iraqis. About 6,500 from other nationalities are held in a highly secured section of the camp, many of whom are Daesh supporters who came from around the world to join the extremist group.
The US last month began transfering some of the 9,000 Daesh members from jails in northeast Syria to Iraq. Baghdad said it will prosecute the transfered detainees. But so far, no solution has been announced for Al-Hol camp and the similar Roj camp.
Amal Al-Hussein of the Syria Alyamama Foundation, a humanitarian group, told the AP that all the clinics in the camp’s medical facility are working 24 hours a day, adding that up to 150 children and 100 women are treated daily.
She added that over the past 10 days there have been five natural births in the camp while cesarean cases were referred to hospitals in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor or Al-Hol town.
She said that there are shortages of baby formula, diapers and adult diapers in the camp.
A resident of the camp for eight years, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to concerns over the safety of her family, said there have been food shortages, while the worst thing is a lack of proper education for her children.
“We want clothes for the children, as well as canned food, vegetables and fruits,” she said, speaking inside a tent surrounded by three of her daughters, adding that the family has not had vegetables and fruits for a month because the items are too expensive for most of the camp residents.
‘Huge material challenges’
Mariam Al-Issa, from the northern Syrian town of Safira, said she wants to leave the camp along with her children so that thy can have proper education and eat good food.
“Because of the financial conditions we cannot live well,” she said. “The food basket includes lentils but the children don’t like to eat it any more.”
“The children crave everything,” Al-Issa said, adding that food at the camp should be improved from mostly bread and water. “It has been a month since we didn’t have a decent meal,” she said.
Thousands of Syrians and Iraqis have returned to their homes in recent years, but many only return to find destroyed homes and no jobs as most Syrians remain living in poverty as a result of the conflict that started in March 2011.
Schmitt said investment is needed to help people who return home to feel safe. “They need to get support in order to have a house, to be able to rebuild a house in order to have an income,” she said.
“Investments to respond and to overcome the huge material challenges people face when they return home,” she added.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, that had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Celine Schmitt, a spokesperson for the UN refugees agency told The Associated Press that the interruption of services occurred for two days during the fighting around the camp.
She said a UNHCR team visited the recaptured came to establish “very quickly the delivery of basic services, humanitarian services,” including access to health centers. Schmitt said that as of Jan. 23, they were able to deliver bread and water inside the camp.
Schmitt, speaking in Damascus, said the situation at Al-Hol camp has been calm and some humanitarian actors have also been distributing food parcels. She said that government has named a new administrator for the camp.
Camp residents moved to Iraq
At its peak after the defeat of Daesh in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of Daesh members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
The current population is about 24,000, including 14,500 Syrians and nearly 3,000 Iraqis. About 6,500 from other nationalities are held in a highly secured section of the camp, many of whom are Daesh supporters who came from around the world to join the extremist group.
The US last month began transfering some of the 9,000 Daesh members from jails in northeast Syria to Iraq. Baghdad said it will prosecute the transfered detainees. But so far, no solution has been announced for Al-Hol camp and the similar Roj camp.
Amal Al-Hussein of the Syria Alyamama Foundation, a humanitarian group, told the AP that all the clinics in the camp’s medical facility are working 24 hours a day, adding that up to 150 children and 100 women are treated daily.
She added that over the past 10 days there have been five natural births in the camp while cesarean cases were referred to hospitals in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor or Al-Hol town.
She said that there are shortages of baby formula, diapers and adult diapers in the camp.
A resident of the camp for eight years, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to concerns over the safety of her family, said there have been food shortages, while the worst thing is a lack of proper education for her children.
“We want clothes for the children, as well as canned food, vegetables and fruits,” she said, speaking inside a tent surrounded by three of her daughters, adding that the family has not had vegetables and fruits for a month because the items are too expensive for most of the camp residents.
‘Huge material challenges’
Mariam Al-Issa, from the northern Syrian town of Safira, said she wants to leave the camp along with her children so that thy can have proper education and eat good food.
“Because of the financial conditions we cannot live well,” she said. “The food basket includes lentils but the children don’t like to eat it any more.”
“The children crave everything,” Al-Issa said, adding that food at the camp should be improved from mostly bread and water. “It has been a month since we didn’t have a decent meal,” she said.
Thousands of Syrians and Iraqis have returned to their homes in recent years, but many only return to find destroyed homes and no jobs as most Syrians remain living in poverty as a result of the conflict that started in March 2011.
Schmitt said investment is needed to help people who return home to feel safe. “They need to get support in order to have a house, to be able to rebuild a house in order to have an income,” she said.
“Investments to respond and to overcome the huge material challenges people face when they return home,” she added.
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