SPECIAL REUTER REPORT (4/12/1999)
Christian-Muslim Clashes Kill 20 in Egypt
(Reuters) - Egypt, facing its bloodiest outbreak of communal violence in recent years, said on Monday that gunbattles between Muslim and Coptic Christian villagers had killed 20 people and wounded 33. But Coptic human rights activist Mamdouh Nakhla told Reuters on Monday evening that the death toll had risen to 27 after five people died in hospital from injuries and two were killed in their homes. ``The number of dead people is 20,'' an Interior Ministry spokesman earlier said of Sunday's clashes around the village of al-Kosheh, 400 km (250 miles) south of Cairo. ``Thirty-three were injured by gunfire and 33 shops were destroyed.'' Security sources said 19 of the dead were Christians and one Muslim. They said two hospitals in Sohag, the provincial capital, had received 45 wounded people as well as 20 bodies. A team from the higher state security prosecutor's office was on its way to the area to investigate, the sources said. Kosheh hit the headlines in 1998 when human rights groups said police investigating the murder of two Copts there had rounded up more than 1,000 people, including Copts, and treated many of them brutally. Official inquiries exonerated the police. Egypt strongly denies allegations of religious persecution leveled by some exiled Coptic groups. Communal violence, at least on the scale of the Kosheh clashes, is rare. In February 1997, Muslim militants killed 10 Christians in a church in the southern village of Abu Qurqas. That attack was seen at the time as the work of al-Gama'a al-Islamiya (Islamic Group), which took up arms in 1992 to try to topple President Hosni Mubarak and turn Egypt into a strict Islamic state.
Christians Complain
Bishop Wissa, the senior local Coptic cleric, said clashes continued on Monday in three nearby villages after the departure of two bishops sent by Pope Shenouda on a fact-finding mission. ``Security forces should do their job,'' he told Reuters by telephone. ``They (Muslims) are breaking the homes of Christians because they don't want Christians living among them.'' An Interior Ministry statement on Sunday night blamed ''criminal elements'' seeking to stir up sectarian tension in Kosheh and the nearby village of Dar al-Salam. Activist Nakhla said 70 Kosheh-born Christians had met chief public prosecutor Maher Abdel Wahed in Cairo on Monday to complain about how the local authorities and police had dealt with the unrest. ``We demand that they be investigated on suspicion of collusion and neglecting their duty, causing residents to burn and destroy the property of Copts and murder them,'' he said. Nakhla said the prosecutor had promised to investigate. There was no immediate comment from Pope Shenouda, spiritual leader of the Orthodox Coptic Church. Egypt officially estimates its Coptic minority at 10 percent of its mainly Muslim population of 64 million. Coptic leaders say their community numbers 10 million.
Petty Quarrel
Sunday's violence, in which gunmen fired from rooftops and looted and burned shops, arose out of a dispute between two shopkeepers on Friday, though accounts of their quarrel vary. Bishop Wissa said in a statement the trouble began at four p.m. on Friday when a Muslim trader, Fayez Awad Hussein, came to buy material from Rashed Fahim Mansour, a Christian shopkeeper.  They quarreled and Hussein's two brothers arrived to help him. Mansour escaped and headed for the police station. Hussein and his brothers began attacking Mansour's shop and other Christian-owned shops. Two security guards opened fire, wounding three Christian passers-by. Bishop Wissa said disturbances spread and by 10 a.m. on Saturday a total of 37 shops owned by Christians had been looted, burned and destroyed as security forces stood by. By 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, four Christian homes had been burned and sporadic gunshots could still be heard. ``Now security forces are everywhere in the village which has created a sense of panic among ordinary citizens,'' he said. The bishop's account could not be independently verified. Muslim residents said the original fight had broken out when an old woman tried to return some material she had bought from Mansour. He refused to refund her money and pushed her over. Angered by this, Hussein attacked Mansour and there was gunfire, the residents said, adding that the violence spread after rumors that two of the three wounded passers-by had died.
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