Christians Under Attack

Catholics bishops of Luxor, whose diocese includes al-Nawahid village in Qena, in the Qena (southern Egypt) province, where Muslim extremists burnt down the houses and businesses of Christian Copts after rumours of flirting between a Christian boy and a Muslim girl. ''Fortunately, in this case the police acted swiftly and brought in a curfew immediately, preventing the incidents from causing more serious damage'', said Monsignor Zakaria to Fides. ''A matter between a couple of young people was transformed into a pretext to lash out at Christians. We have reason to believe instead that there is a plan to force Christians to convert, with especial focus on girls who are the weakest,'' he continued. ''We are aware of a several episodes of Muslim young people who have been eyeing Christian girls and trying to kidnap them to force them to convert to Islam,'' noted the Luxor bishop. ''Similar episodes have occurred all the way from Alexandria to Aswan.'' ''As Egyptian Christians we feel very close to other brethren persecuted in Iraq,'' said Monsignor Zakaria, who on Sunday in Luxor celebrated a mass of intercession for those who died on October 31 in an attack on the Syriac-Catholic church of Baghdad.