CAIRO – Clashes between Muslims and Christians in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Saturday left six people dead and about 50 others injured, the health ministry said.
The two groups clashed in the northwestern district of Imbaba after Muslims attacked the Coptic Saint Mena church to free a Christian woman they alleged was being held against her will because she wanted to convert to Islam.
A parish priest, Father Hermina, told AFP the dead were Copts who died when “thugs and (Muslim fundamentalist) Salafis fired at them” in the late afternoon attack.
The Gospel had been laid on a body wrapped in a sheet that was lying inside the church. The church floor was bloodstained as wounded Christians were brought into the church for treatment.
Outside the church, located in the poor working-class neighborhood of Imbaba, military police parked several armoured cars to block off Muslim protesters from the church.
They fired their guns into the air as Christians in front of the church and Muslim protesters down the street hurled stones at each other. The Muslim protesters threw firebombs, one of them setting an apartment near the church on fire.
“Oh God! Oh Jesus!” chanted the Coptic protesters. They scuffled with soldiers, blaming them for not doing enough to protect them.
The soldiers advanced at Muslim protesters who edged closer to the church, firing over their heads to repel them.
An officer ordered a soldier to escort an AFP journalist away from the church, saying “no journalists are allowed.”
Hermina and witnesses had said the Muslims had tried to storm the church earlier in the day, claiming the Christians were holding a Muslim woman.
At one of the cordons, Muslim protesters said they were first fired upon by the Copts, after they tried to find a Christian woman they say converted to Islam and was being held inside.
“They started firing on us. We were peaceful,” said one of the protesters who gave his name as Mamduh. “We won’t leave until they give up their weapons and the people who killed us are tried.”
No weapons could be seen inside the church and the Copts there said they had none.
The injured, who suffered from fractures and gunshot wounds, were taken to four city hospitals, medical officials said.
Copts make up between six and 10 percent of the Egyptian population which numbers more than 80 million people.
Claims that Christian women who converted to Islam were kidnapped and held in churches or monasteries have soured relations between the two communities for months.
Egypt’s military rulers had warned on May 1 of strong measures against anyone inciting sectarian strife, in a bid to ease tensions between Muslims and Christians.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which took power after president Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in February, said it was “exerting all efforts to end sectarian disagreements on the Egyptian street to protect this nation.”
The statement came after a series of Muslim-Christian clashes and amid the growing public presence of Salafis – a puritanical Islamist sect – since the fall of Mubarak after a wave of mass protests.
On April 29, around 2,000 Salafis protested outside the Coptic Church’s headquarters in Cairo to demand the release of two women they alleged were being held after converting to Islam.
The church denies the women converted to Islam.
The claim was picked up by an Al-Qaeda-linked group in Iraq that massacred dozens of Christians in a Baghdad church in November 2010 and vowed more attacks until the two women were freed.
Two months later, a suicide bomber killed more than 20 Copts after a New Year’s Eve mass in Egypt’s coastal city of Alexandria.
In the central province of Minya, security was boosted last month after a Christian-Muslim family dispute sparked deadly clashes, prompting Muslim residents to burn homes and shops owned by Coptic Christians.
The Minya incident came as thousands in the neighbouring province of Qena protested against the appointment of a Christian governor linked to the ousted Mubarak regime.
The clashes and protests raised fears of widespread sectarian unrest, with the Coptic minority long complaining of discrimination.