Crazed Knife-Wielding Man Kills in Series of Attacks on Egyptian Churches

|PIC1|Christians in Coptic churches across the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria were attacked during services by a man wielding a knife. The attacker killed a 78-year-old-man and wounded another five before he was finally arrested, the Egyptian government has reported.

Following the vicious attack, approximately 600 Coptic Christians, mostly young men, gathered outside the scene of one of the attacks, to protest against the inactivity from the government to the attacks.

Banners were used during the protest to get across the message, with one saying ‘Stop the Persecution of Copts in Egypt’.

In Egypt, Coptic Christians make up 10 percent of the 72 million population, but there is a heavy Muslim majority in the country.

Although the attack comes at a time when most Christian in the world are celebrating Easter, the Coptic Christians follow a calendar similar to the Eastern Orthodox churches, and therefore celebrate Easter a week later.

|TOP|The Egyptian Interior Ministry said, “A citizen attacked three worshippers inside the Mar Girgis Church in al-Hadhra with a knife and then fled and went into the Saints Church, where he attacked three other worshippers and again fled,” Associated Press has reported.

The ministry added that the police arrested the man as he was attempting to enter yet another church.

The attacker has been identified as Mahmoud Salah-Eddin Abdel-Raziq, and government authorities report that he is suffering from “psychological disturbances.”

However, reports have been blurred somewhat after local police reported that three men in total have been arrested connected to the killings, and they stated that the attacks had left one dead and 16 wounded. AP state that the discrepancies could not be explained at the current time.

|AD|One of those that were wounded, Kuzman Tawfiq, 69, said he had just finished praying in Saints Church and gone outside. He said, “Suddenly there was a youth holding two machetes and shouting: 'Oh, the prophet of God! Oh, the prophet of God.”

The attacker slashed Tawfiq in the stomach, resulting in serious wounds that required urgent surgery.

Although, on the whole, Egyptian Christians live peacefully with Muslims in the country, occasionally sectarian have occurred.

In October 2005, Muslim militants attacked churches in Alexandria protesting against a DVD they deemed offensive to Islam. As a result four people were killed in weeklong riots.

Christians in the country complain that they suffer job discrimination, particularly in the high ranks of the civil service where positions such as general, provincial governor and faculty head are almost customarily held by Muslims.