Egypt hunts for killers in church wedding attack

CAIRO: Police were hunting Monday for attackers who killed four Copts in a shooting spree at a church wedding, in the first assault targeting Christians in Cairo since the ouster of Egypt’s Islamist president.
An eight-year-old girl was among those shot dead at the Church of the Virgin in Cairo’s working class neighborhood of Al-Warrak, while 17 others were wounded in the late Sunday attack, officials said.
Witnesses recounted how celebrations quickly turned to horror as the attackers sped toward the wedding party on a motorbike, sprayed the crowd with bullets and fled.
“It’s unfair. This isn’t acceptable in any religion,” cried Layla Ezzat, one of many who returned to the scene of the attack to grieve.
One worshipper Ayman Moussa told AFP there had been no security at the church since June, despite several attacks against Copts around the country in the wake of president Muhammad Mursi’s July 3 ouster by the army.
The community was left reeling by the attack.
“We as Copts are paying the price of Mursi’s ouster. We are targeted. We no longer feel safe anywhere,” said Iman Girguis, 40.
The interior ministry listed two attackers but some witnesses spoke of three.
“Three masked men on a motorbike approached us. Two opened fire on us and then everything turned to blood and chaos,” said Moawad Wagih, 40, speaking outside the morgue where the bodies had been taken.
Ahmed Al-Ansari, the head of ambulance services, said four people were killed and 17 were wounded, updating an earlier toll. A morgue official said those killed were all Copts.
Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi condemned the attack in a cabinet statement, calling it a “despicable criminal act,” and said security forces were searching for the assailants.
“Such terrible acts will not succeed in dividing Muslims and Christians,” he said.
Beblawi said police were investigating the circumstances of the attack and that he had asked authorities to provide emergency medical services to the wounded.
Egyptian Christians, the majority of whom are Copts, have been targeted since Mursi was swept out of power by the army amid mass protests against his year-long rule, and in particular since an August 14 crackdown by security forces on two Cairo camps of Mursi supporters.
Islamists were enraged by the deadly crackdown and accused Coptic Christians of backing the coup that toppled Mursi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood and was Egypt’s first democratically elected president.
This perception was fueled by the appearance of Coptic Pope Tawadros II alongside army chief General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi when he announced on television Mursi’s removal from office.
Muslim leaders and other politicians were also present.
Rights groups say that Copts, who account for six to 10 percent of Egypt’s 85 million people, have come under attack mainly in the provinces of Minya and Assiut in central Egypt.
Earlier this month London-based Amnesty International said that more than 200 Christian-owned properties were attacked and 43 churches seriously damaged across the country since the August 14 crackdown.
In its report Amnesty International blamed Egyptian security forces for failing to stop “revenge attacks” against Coptic Christians after the violent dispersal of the pro-Mursi camps.
The Muslim Brotherhood has deplored Sunday’s attack and blamed it in part on the military-installed authorities.
“The military-backed authorities continue to turn a blind eye to deliberate acts of arson, vandalism and murder,” it said in a statement.
Egypt’s Copts have long complained of discrimination and marginalization, particularly under Mursi’s one-year rule.
Egypt’s new government is engaged in a widespread crackdown on Islamists, jailing more than 2,000 since the storming of the pro-Mursi camps.
Mursi himself is in custody and is to go on trial November 4 over deadly clashes between his supporters and opponents outside the presidential palace in December 2012.
Most of the Brotherhood’s leaders, including its supreme guide Mohammed Badie, are also in custody.
An Egyptian court last month banned the Muslim Brotherhood from operating and seized its assets.