Dubai: Copts have faced consistent persecution and discrimination dating back to the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled by a popular uprising in 2011.
But Egypt’s Christians have endured successive attacks since Islamist President Mohammad Mursi’s ouster in July 2013.
More than 40 churches were attacked nationwide in the two weeks after the deadly dispersal by security forces of two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo on August 14, 2013, Human Rights Watch said.
Amnesty International later said more than 200 Christian-owned properties were attacked and 43 churches seriously damaged.
Here is an abbreviated timeline of attacks:
Jan 1 2011: An unclaimed bombing of a Coptic church killed more than 20 people in Egypt’s second city of Alexandria on New Year’s Day.
May 2011: Clashes between Muslims and Copts left 15 dead in the working-class Cairo neighbourhood of Imbaba where two churches were attacked.
October 2011: Almost 30 people — mostly Coptic Christians — were killed after the army charged at a protest outside the state television building in Cairo to denounce the torching of a church in southern Egypt.
February 2015: 21 Egyptian Coptic labourers beheaded by Daesh in Libya
December 2016: Daesh claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on a Cairo church that killed 25 people, the first claim for one of the worst attacks on the Coptic Christian community in recent memory.
The bombing was the worst attack against the Copts since a 2011 suicide bombing killed more than 20 worshippers outside a church in the coastal city of Alexandria.
February 2017: Hundreds of Christians flee the Daesh-stronghold of Sinai after a string of attacks kill their religious brethren.
