Yet another murderous wave is taking Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority by storm, leading to another exodus from their homes.
Last week in al-Arish, Sinai, Islamic State affiliates killed a 65-year-old Christian man by shooting him in the head; they then abducted and tortured his 45-year-old son before burning him alive and dumping his charred remains near a schoolyard.
Perhaps because of its sensationalist nature — burning a human alive — this story was reported by some Western media. Yet the atrocities hardly begin or end there. Below is a list of Christians murdered in al-Arish in recent days and weeks:
- January 30: A 35-year-old Christian was in his small shop working with his wife and young son when three masked men walked in, opened fire on and killed him. The murderers then sat around his shop table, eating chips and drinking soda, while the slain lay in a pool of blood before the terrified wife and child.
- February 13: A 57-year-old Christian laborer was shot and killed as he tried to fight off masked men trying to kidnap his young son from off a crowded street in broad daylight. After murdering the father, they seized his young son and took him to an unknown location (where, per precedent, he is likely being tortured, possibly already killed, if a hefty ransom has not already been paid).
- February 16: A 45-year-old Christian schoolteacher was moonlighting at his shoe store with his wife, when masked men walked in the crowded shop and shot him dead.
- February 17: A 40-year-old medical doctor was killed by masked men who, after forcing him to stop his car, opened fire on and killed him. He, too, leaves a widow and two children.
It is likely that more Christians have been slain recently in Sinai; because Copts are being killed in quick succession, it is not clear if ongoing reports are documenting the same or new incidences. For instance, a recent February 24 report says “On Thursday [February 23], a [Christian] plumber in the city was shot dead in front of his wife and children at their home…. A day earlier [February 22], gunmen killed another [Christian] man before his pregnant wife, then calmly drank a bottle of Pepsi before taking off, witnesses told aid workers in Ismailia.” Is the February 22 Pepsi drinking incident the same as the one reported above as occurring on January 30, or a different one?
This uptick in Christian persecution is believed to be in response to a video recently released by the Islamic State in Sinai. In it, masked militants promise more attacks on the “worshipers of the cross,” a reference to the Copts of Egypt, whom they also referred to as their “favorite prey” and the “infidels who are empowering the West against Muslim nations.”
As a result of the recent slayings and threats of more to come, at least 300 Christians living in al-Arish have fled their homes, with nothing but their clothes on their backs and their children in their hands. Most have congregated in a Coptic church compound in neighboring Ismailia by the Suez Canal.
In a video of these destitute Copts, one man can be heard saying “They are burning us alive! They seek to exterminate Christians altogether! Where’s the [Egyptian] military?” Another woman yells at the camera, “Tell the whole world, look — we’ve left our homes, and why? Because they kill our children, they kill our women, they kill our innocent people! Why? Our children are terrified to go to schools. Why? Why all this injustice?! Why doesn’t the president move and do something for us? We can’t even answer our doors without being terrified!”
(Note: Donations that go directly to the dislocated Christians of al-Arish can be made here).
For his part, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ordered military and security forces to “completely eradicate terrorism” in North Sinai. Such a response might be reassuring to al-Arish’s Christians — if it wasn’t also deja vu. Back in 2012, and in response to what Islamists perceived as widespread Christian support for Sisi’s military coup of then president Morsi — Sinai’s Christians were heavily plummeted: one priest, Fr. Mina Cherubim, was shot dead in front of his church; a 65-year- old Christian man was beheaded; several other Christians, including youths, were kidnapped, held for ransom, and later executed when the exorbitant ransoms could not be met. Two churches were attacked, one burned.
Just as now, hundreds of Christians fled their homes; and, just as now, Sisi vowed to root out the jihadi nests in Sinai.
Incidentally, it should not be imagined that Christians in Sinai are only murdered when ISIS or other jihadis have a special reason (such as 2012’s “revenge” spree against pro-Sisi Christians) or when a video inciting violence against Christians is released (as in the recent cases). For instance, in June 2016, Fr. Raphael Moussa 46, was randomly shot dead in “a hail of bullets” outside the Church of the Martyr of St George in Sinai.
In January 2015, masked gunmen stormed the home of a Christian man residing in al-Arish. After robbing him and his family at gunpoint, they shot him several times in the head, instantly killing him. According to the slain man’s wife, her husband was murdered “only because he was a Copt [i.e., Christian].” She pointed out that the masked intruders robbed everything in sight — including the money in his pockets, the jewelry she was wearing, her handbag, cell phones, and even a Bible. Then, after stealing everything available, and for no practical purpose, they shot her “infidel” husband dead. A month later, another Christian man in al-Arish was randomly and fatally shot.
Nor, it should be noted, is the slaughter of Egypt’s Christians limited to Sinai, which some downplay by pointing out that the peninsula is already an acknowledged hotbed of jihadi activity. Last month, few Western media reported on any of four separate murders of Christians that took place over the course of just ten days — murders that occurred all around Egypt proper, not Sinai: in Alexandria (where a Muslim man crept up behind a Christian shopkeeper and slit his throat, murdering him); in Lower Egypt (where a Christian man, 62, and his wife, 55, were found slaughtered, with numerous stab wounds, in their home); in Upper Egypt (where a young and well-liked Christian surgeon known for offering free services to the poor, was also found slaughtered with many stab wounds in his apartment).
And of course there was Cairo — the nation’s capital — where, two months ago, an Islamic suicide bomber entered St. Peter’s Cathedral and killed nearly 30 Christians, mostly women and children.
In short, a new genocide appears to be unfolding — the Obama administration itself admitted that ISIS is committing “genocide” against Christians and other minorities — even as an old indifference looks the other way.
Crusades Were Right! says
Current establishment “wisdom” has it that Islam should get the “not guilty” verdict on the grounds that most Mohammedans aren’t actively engaged in committing these kinds of vile crimes against others.
On that basis, I strongly suspect that Nazism, Communism and the Ku Klux Klan would also have to be declared “not guilty”.
Or is that different?
Angemon says
“Or is that different?”
Of course it’s different. Nazis, Commies and KKK-ers are mostly White Males!
mortimer says
Islam is the only religion that actively promotes genocide as the ‘final solution’ demanded by their god.
And He brought those of the People of the Scripture who supported them down from their strongholds, and cast panic into their hearts. Some ye slew and ye made captive some. And He caused you to inherit their land and their houses and their wealth, and land ye have not trodden. Allah is Able to do all things
Qur’an 33:26-27
Then the Messenger of Allah commanded that ditches should be dug, so they were dug in the earth, and they were brought tied by their shoulders, and were beheaded. There were between seven hundred and eight hundred of them. The children who had not yet reached adolescence and the women were taken prisoner, and their wealth was seized.
Tafsir Ibn Kathir – The Campaign against Banu Qurayzah
Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri: Some people (i.e. the Jews of Bani bin quraiza) agreed to accept the verdict of Sad bin Muadh so the Prophet sent for him (i.e. Sad bin Muadh). He came riding a donkey, and when he approached the Mosque, the Prophet said, “Get up for the best amongst you.” or said, “Get up for your chief.” Then the Prophet said, “O Sad! These people have agreed to accept your verdict.” Sad said, “I judge that their warriors should be killed and their children and women should be taken as captives.” The Prophet said, “You have given a judgment similar to Allah’s Judgment (or the King’s judgment).”
Sahih Bukhari 5:58:148
1reader says
Dang, mortimer, that is some Holy, holy sh-t. I especially love the holy instructions thus,
“Then the Messenger of Allah commanded that ditches should be dug, so they were dug in the earth, and they were brought tied by their shoulders, and were beheaded.”
RichardL says
the truly confounding thing is that the Christians say they are willing martyrs. I have many Egyptian friends and that is their attitude. Most of them have second passports. Still they will not leave. Like the German Jews: we are Germans! we are professors, soldiers, bankers… They will not do this to us.
dumbledoresarmy says
Part of it is Dhimmitude. Read Mark Durie “The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom”, and its companion booklet “Liberty to the Captives”.
There’s also a very good essay by Bat Yeor, summarising the history of the Copts under Muslim rule, “A Christian Minority: The Copts in Egypt”.
The other part of it is this: the Copts *know* that they are in their own homeland. They are in continuity with the pre-Islamic history of Egypt. They are *more* truly Egyptian than any of the Muslims around them, even though most of those Muslims are descended from force-‘converted’ Copts. They originally spoke Coptic rather than Arabic. They are the aboriginals, so to speak. And naturally enough they do not want to flee their homeland and leave the invaders and occupiers, the Muslim Arabs (and the Arabised and Islamised persons who have utterly forgotten and repudiated and despise their pre-Arab pre-Islamic ancestors and identity) in undisputed and boastful possession.
I have often thought that what the Copts need is the equivalent of Israel. In a sane world, the USA and Russia, the two most powerful daughters of Western and Eastern Christendom, would get together and force Egypt to accept the carving-off of a ‘Kosovo’ homeland for the Copts. Aegyptia Nova – Sinai, with Gaza included (it has water and fertile land; it used to have orange groves and vineyards)… *and* the Suez Canal with a strip of territory either side, to provide revenue for the new non-Muslim Coptic state, and to ensure that a key transport corridor was under the protection of an Infidel state. ALL Muslims would be turfed out, back into Egypt; meanwhile, ALL the Copts would move from Egypt to Aegyptia Nova, which would be allied with *both* the USA and Russia – and under their joint nuke ‘umbrellas’ – AND … with Israel, who could advise the Copts on how to make the desert bloom, and help them train their young men and women to create a Coptic equivalent of the IDF, to keep all future mohammedan attempts at invasion at bay.
The new state would derive revenue from oil, fishing, tourism (the Sinai beaches are marvellous), religious pilgrims (the Mt Sinai monastery could be revitalised as a centre of learning and devotion), agriculture and the Suez Canal. And I *bet* that it would return magnificently on all monies invested by its Infidel sponsors and allies. It wouldn’t be a ‘failed state’ addled by Islam, like Kosovo is becoming or soon will be. Like Israel, it would flourish; and the Copts would at least be close to home and ‘at home’, and looking after a very ancient Christian historical site. They could welcome Jewish Israeli investment, tourists and businessmen. They wouldn’t have to worry about attack from the Israel side of the border; and ditto, Israelis would no longer have to fear attack from the south-east, at least.
1reader says
I have a great idea. Let’s import these Sharia motivated murderers in to the USA. We have a lot of Christians here that they could murder. Oh, and Jews and gays and….
Voytek Gagalka says
“Religion of peace” at work. What the RC Pope would say about it? Nothing. He considers them probably as “heretics,” not Christians, and promptly shrugs reciting his usual mantra and continuing to meet Mohammedans only, while demanding that Europe must admit even more those savages in name of “Christianity.” Not condemning the evil helps only its spreading.
common sense says
Appallingly sick, treacherous cowardly genocide, filthy and disgusting.
To stop this we must identify, seek and destroy. Reporting it might also help ya think?
President will have to be the one or this will go un noted.
londo says
It is the crime of our time that we as a culture have not made these people to answer for their cruelty, and if we continue to do nothing, the day will come when we are asking why is there nobody to help us. If you Americans think you are safe then you just don’t understand the power of exponential growth.
carol says
“…the Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate, complex order is and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within.” – Will Durant, historian (1885-1991)
LB says
What are you talking about? All is well in “fair and square elected” al-Sisi’s Egypt. Just ask our resident Sisi-lover.