Christian families who had left El Arish, in northern Sinai, arriving at a church in Ismailia, Egypt. Credit Ahmed Aboulenein/Reuters
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By DECLAN WALSH and NOUR YOUSSEFFEB. 24,
2017
CAIRO
— Dozens of Egyptian Christian families fled their homes in the northern Sinai
Peninsula on Friday, driven by a targeted campaign of Islamist violence that
has killed at least seven people in recent weeks.
People
flooded into a church compound in the city of Ismailia, on the Suez Canal. Many
had fled hurriedly with little more than their clothes and their children.
Their flight had been prompted by the release of an Islamic State video on
Sunday that vowed to step up attacks on the embattled Christian minority in
Sinai.
The
video was followed, in recent days, by a series of attacks by gunmen in El
Arish, the main town in northern Sinai. On Thursday, a plumber in the city was
shot dead in front of his wife and children at their home, according to aid
workers and Christian leaders.
A
day earlier, gunmen killed another man before his pregnant wife, then calmly
drank a bottle of Pepsi before taking off, witnesses told aid workers in
Ismailia.
“They
want to send a message that nobody is safe,” said Mina Thabet, who works with
the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms and who helped with the
emergency effort in Ismailia.
The
killings represent an escalation of a campaign announced by the Islamic State
in December, when a suicide
bomber struck a prominent Cairo church during Sunday Mass, killing about 30
people. The group says it wants to wage sectarian war in Egypt, much as it has
already done in parts of Iraq and Syria.
Coptic
Christians in Egypt, who account for about 10 percent of the country’s
population, are the largest Christian community in the Middle East. Although
they have been subjected to increasing violence in recent years, the Islamic
State campaign is an alarming turn.
“As
the Islamic State comes under pressure in Iraq and Syria, it has to show
movement on other fronts,” said Zack Gold, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, an international
affairs research organization. “One of them is to demonstrate that it is still
fighting a sectarian war.”
Hossam
Rafaei, a lawmaker from North Sinai, said that about 90 Christian families had
arrived in Ismailia. After receiving help at a church, some have been put in
government housing, while others found private accommodations.
Mr.
Rafaei said his constituents were in a “state of war,” but another lawmaker
from the area, Rahmi Abd Rabbo, tried to play down the violence, claiming that
no more than five families had fled from Sinai. “It is not about being Muslim
or Christian,” he said. “Police and military people are targeted, too.”
But
fleeing Christians spoke of death lists compiled by militants and attacks in
which militants had set houses on fire or burned the bodies of their victims.
Many said they had no choice but to flee.
“Things
were never this bad,” said one man from El Arish, speaking by phone. “They
killed a couple of church leaders in the past, but the killings were far apart.
Now we are told that are were making lists of all the Copts there.”
The
man spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing for his life.
Aid
workers in Ismailia estimated that at least 250 people had taken shelter in the
city in churches and other safe places.
On
Thursday, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi instructed his security chiefs to
“completely eradicate terrorism in northern Sinai,” according to a statement
issued by his office. But angry Copts also blamed Mr. Sisi’s Egyptian security
forces for failing to protect them. The
security forces have been battling Islamist militants in Sinai for years.
“The
state allowed hate speech to flourish, and over time that has turned into
action,” said Michel Antoune, an Evangelical church leader from Ismailia
helping the refugees. “This the natural result of state indifference.”
Earlier
on Friday, Mr. Antoune helped the wife of Kamel Youssef, the plumber who had
been shot dead in El Arish on Thursday. “She broke our hearts,” Mr. Antoune
said. “We did not know what to say to her.”
The
violence against Christians could become a topic of discussion for the White
House visit planned by Mr. Sisi in the coming months.
President
Trump has made counterterrorism a central part of his Middle East policy. Mr.
Trump has lavished praise on Mr. Sisi, praising him as a “fantastic guy,”
despite criticism from human rights groups about Egypt’s dismal human rights
record.
The
Islamic State affiliate in Sinai is small compared with Iraq or Syria, but it
has been increasingly active in recent weeks. It has carried out two rocket
attacks on Israel in the past two weeks. There were no reported casualties, and
Israel’s defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said in a newspaper interview
that such attacks, while “vexing,” did not pose a major security threat.
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