The Copts of the village of Ghuraizat in Sohag, Upper Egypt, are persistent in refusing to reach any ‘conciliation’ with the Muslim villagers regarding the attack which was waged by the Muslims against them last week, and which left on Muslim and two Copts dead.
WATANI International
2 December 2011
The Copts of the village of Ghuraizat in Sohag, Upper Egypt, are persistent in refusing to reach any ‘conciliation’ with the Muslim villagers regarding the attack which was waged by the Muslims against them last week, and which left on Muslim and two Copts dead.
The violence erupted in the wake of a fight between John Hosni, a Coptic student, and a Muslim microbus driver man who goes by the name of Shaikhoun, in his thirties. Hosni hit Shaikhoun with a sharp instrument on the head; the driver was rushed to hospital where he breathed his last. It was circulated that the fight was the result of a dispute over land; Hosni was building a fence on land which Shaikhoun claimed was his property, even though Hosni had all the legal papers proving his ownership of the land. Eyewitnesses told Watani that the Hosnis were well-off in what is predominantly a poor village, and that the fight was merely the result of “jealousies”.
The village Muslims decided to take vengeance of all the Copts in the village, and went on a brutal spree of assaulting them and looting and destroying or burning their homes or shops. Two Coptic brothers in their late twenties, Kamel and Kameel Tamer, were slaughtered. And the losses incurred from attacking 25 shops amounted to some EGP1 million.
Bimen Attallah, a lawyer who lives in Ghuraizat, bitterly asked why all the Copts in the village should be made to pay a horrendous price for something they had no hand in. “We have been attacked under the eyes and noses of the police,” he said, “who did not lift a finger to protect us.”
The police in the village focused on protecting the Mar-Girgis (St George) church alone, and did nothing to defend the Copt’s lives or homes. Two other churches in the village were also left unprotected.
The Copts called upon the Military Council to rescue them, but there was no response.
After the burial of Shaikhoun and the Tamer brothers, attempts were made by local security officials to reconcile the villages Coptic and Muslim families, but the Copts refused any reconciliation unless legal procedures are assumed, and the culprits are caught and brought to justice.
Anba Bakhoum, Bishop of Sohag, paid a visit to Ghuraizat last Wednesday during which he visited Muslim families as well as the Coptic ones, in an attempt to achieve peace in the village. The situation, however, remains tense.
Shaikhoun has fled the village, but his father has handed himself over to the police, in a gesture which is meant to indicate the [extended] family takes responsibility for the killing of the two Copts.