Copts point to lack of security at churches despite threats

Egyptian Christians wept with rage on Monday as they recovered the bodies of loved ones killed in twin church bombings, furious at a state they believe will no longer protect them from neighbours bent on their murder.

Forty-four people were killed in the attacks on Palm Sunday, a joyous festival a week before Easter. At Tanta University hospital morgue, desperate families were trying to get inside to search for loved ones. Security forces held them back to stop overcrowding, enraging the crowd. “Why are you preventing us from entering now? Where were you when all this happened?” shouted one woman looking for a relative. Hours after the attack, Kerols Paheg and other young Coptic Christians were already digging graves in the basement of the devastated St. George Church in the northern Nile Delta city, where the first of the bombs exploded, killing 27 and wounding around 80.

He showed photos on his phone of the carnage: human remains, blood and shattered glass strewn across the floor of the church on one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar. From now on, Christians will have to protect their churches themselves, rather than rely on the police, “because what’s happening is too much. It’s unacceptable,” he said.

Copts make up about 10% of Egypt’s 92 million people, the largest Christian minority in West Asia. Yet despite a presence dating back to the Roman era, the community feels increasingly ostracised and has repeatedly been targeted in attacks, including by Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for Sunday’s bombings.

Hours after the blast in Tanta, the second bomb blew up at the entrance to Saint Mark’s Cathedral in Alexandria, the historic seat of the Coptic pope, killing 17 people. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has promised to protect the Christian minority as part of a campaign against extremism. But Copts in Tanta said security was almost non-existent on Sunday despite repeated warnings in recent weeks.

“We were not expecting people who live with us in the same country, people with whom we’ve shared love and friendships, and with whom we’re familiar, to do these things,” said Tanta priest Tawfik Kobeish.