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Anti-Christian Hostility Motivated Lethal Attack on Copts, Sources in Egypt Say

By C. J. Refsland on February 17, 2014 • ( 0 )

My Comment: This has not gotten easier for our Brother’s and Sister’s in Egypt. They face death daily, and again the world bodies remain silent. One thing I read over and over is these attacks strengthen the faith of the Christians.

CAIRO, Egypt (Morning Star News) – More than a week after a Muslim went on an anti-Christian rampage in Upper Egypt that left one woman dead and another wounded, many area Coptic women are still too afraid to leave their homes, residents said.

In Kom Ombo, 48 kilometers (30 miles) north of Aswan, the Muslim on Feb. 8 attacked several Christians, including employees of two Coptic-owned pharmacies and two students who were walking nearby. Although the alleged assailant has been arrested, residents fear there could be others whose sole motivation for attacking was hostility toward Christians.

Madline Wagih Demian, 30, was killed solely because of her faith, said her brother, Ayman Wagih Demian, while religious rights advocates say rumors about the mental stability of the suspect, Mahmoud Mohamed Ali, are circulating in order to conceal the religious motive and begin to build his defense.

“He killed her because she is a Christian,” Demian said. “There was nothing else. He was targeting Christian pharmacies. He went and tried to attack a Christian, and when he failed, he went to the next Christian pharmacy.”

Security officials arrested Ali, a Kom Ombo resident, around midnight the night of the attacks and are holding him in the town. Witnesses of the attacks, including three victims who survived, have identified him as the culprit.

The attacks began shortly before 7 p.m. when Ali walked up to the service counter of a Coptic-owned pharmacy, requested some medication and asked for the price. The clerk, who gave Morning Star News only his last name, Abanoub, told Ali that he had to check the price on his computer, and then Ali attacked.

“I told him, ‘What are you doing?’” Abanoub told Morning Star News. “And he said, ‘I am going to kill you. I am going to kill you.’ I held his hand that had the knife in it and the other hand and kicked him … [I] kept hitting him there until he fell on the floor and went outside the pharmacy.”

Ali went to another Coptic-owned pharmacy and, once inside, he pulled out the knife and plunged it into Madline Wagih Demian’s neck, severing one of her arteries, witnesses said. Demian screamed, fell to the floor and bled to death within seconds, they said.

Ali ran out of the pharmacy and found two high school girls, Marian Kamal Shafik, 19, and Youstina Nasser Gendy, 18, walking down the street. Moments before, Gendy and Shafik had waved hello to Demian, a mutual friend of theirs, as they passed. As they continued on their way, the two heard Demian’s last scream, not realizing something was wrong until seconds later.

“When I turned around to tell my friend to hurry up,” Gendy said. “I saw this guy come running out of the pharmacy, and he stabbed her in the shoulder from the back. Marian fell face-down on the ground. I went toward her, and she said, ‘Help me.’”

Ali had left the knife in Shafik’s back, and Gendy said she didn’t know whether to pull it out or not. Before she could act, Gendy saw Ali coming back for the knife, she said.

“He came back and pulled the knife out of her shoulder and told her, ‘You deserve it,’” Gendy said.

Gendy fled, running into a crowded street to escape Ali and to find help for Shafik. When she returned, Ali was gone.

Gendy was taken away from the attack in an ambulance carrying Shafik, who survived, and the body of Demian. For days Gendy was unable to talk and, without warning, would break into fits of screaming. She is starting to recover, but the words Ali said keep playing through her mind.

“What was the girl who was killed guilty of?” she said, her voice filling with anger. “What are we guilty of that we are not able to walk the street? What have we done to ‘deserve’ this?”

Ayman Wagih Demian said the killing has crushed his family. His sister, who was married, worked at the pharmacy to raise money to help take care of her ailing parents.

Full Article Anti-Christian Hostility Motivated Lethal Attack on Copts, Sources in Egypt Say.