You may also access this article at the Cairo Times site.
Volume 3, Issue 24
13 to 19 January 2000
Sectarian violence in the Upper Egyptian village of Al Kosheh on 2 January have left 20 dead, the Interior Ministry and the local Coptic bishop have reported in separate statements.
The incident was bloodier than any other outbreak of sectarian violence in Egypt's modern history, including clashes over the construction of a church in the north Cairo district of Al Zawiya Al Hamra in 1981, and a number of massacres of Christians by Islamist militants over the years. Bishop Wissa, whose diocese is based in the nearby town of Al Balyana, has stated that all 20 victims are Coptic Christians, and has supplied sixteen of their names. Ministry statements have not specified how many of the victims are of which religion, and a ministry spokesman refused to comment on the issue to the Cairo Times.
It is still far from clear what happened over the weekend in the village of Al Kosheh, the nearby town of Dar Al Salaam, and several other neighboring communities. As of press time, the village is sealed off by the security forces. The telephone exchange has been closed. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights has a delegation inside the area, but has refused to comment until it returns to Cairo. Reports on the incident have appeared on state television and in both opposition and government-owned newspapers, but so far, no interviews with named eyewitnesses have been printed.
All sources concur that the problems began on Friday, 31 December, on the main street of Al Kosheh, in a shop owned by Christian textile merchant Rashed Fahim Mansour. All sources concur that Mansour got into a fight with a Muslim fruit merchant, Fayez Hussein. There is disagreement over what happened next. According to the Interior Ministry, "relatives of both parties entered the fray using sticks and firearms, and there was some damage to kiosks and stores." Wissa alleges that Mansour and his relatives escaped from their shop and went to the police station to complain. But instead of going to his assistance, the civilian guards outside the station opened fire, injuring three Christians. The shooting set off a general riot, the bishop's statement alleges. While the security forces stood by, the statement said, Muslims set about attacking Christian homes and stores in the area.
Neither the bishop's statement nor a 31 December Interior Ministry statement made any mention of arrests.
An uneasy calm held for that night and the following day. "Now there are a great many of police spread out in the village," said a section of the statement apparently written on the night of 1 January. "They are causing a great deal of fear among the simple people of the village... Even though going outside is permitted, most people are scared of the police presence and the churches are almost completely empty." The statement said that there were harsh words between one priest and the investigating state security officer.
The Al Ahram daily reported one development during the night--an unknown car drove through the Al Kosheh and several surrounding villages, and a passenger shouted out through a megaphone that the tap water was poisoned.
The first deaths--the shooting of Abdel Masih Mahrous and Samia Abdel Masih Mahrous--happened in the afternoon of the next day after Sunday church prayers. Violence quickly spread to the town of Dar Al Salaam, 15 kilometers away, and the nearby villages of Western and Eastern Awlad Toq, Al Nossayrat, and Nagaa Moussa. Yohanna Fikri, who is representing relatives in Al Kosheh in a complaint to the public prosecutor, told the Cairo Times that the police in Western and Eastern Awlad Toq were able to contain the situation, but that in Kosheh they failed to do so. All the dead are reported to have been from Al Kosheh.
The Washington-based US Copts Association alleged in a 2 January statement that "Muslim clerics in nearby villages called upon the Muslims to gather up and go to Al Kosheh village and fight and kill the infidel Christians. Our source said that these calls, which came from nearby mosques, could be heard over microphones installed in these mosques by all police forces that did nothing to stop it." Association spokesman Michael Meunier says that the killers went door to door. "The distinctive thing is that the police didn't do anything to stop it," he says. Meunier would not say whom he had contacted inside of Al Kosheh, nor how he had been able to contact them.
An Interior Ministry spokesman told the Cairo Times that the death toll was high because many of the wounded went untreated for fear of going to hospital.
In addition to the dead, the Ministry of Interior reported, the toll of the violence included 33 injured, 11 of whom have already left hospital, as well as 33 Christian-owned stores and two cars damaged. Al Ahram also reported that 45 Muslim-owned stores were damaged, and that 22 people were arrested.
Al Kosheh was the scene of a major alleged human rights abuse in 1998. According to the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights and residents of Al Kosheh interviewed by the Cairo Times, police had tortured up to 1200 Coptic Christian civilians during a routine murder investigation. Bishop Wissa helped publicize the allegations, and consequently was criticized in the Egyptian press for harming the nation's reputation abroad. The government has consistently denied that any police misconduct occurred at Al Kosheh. Local prosecutors conducted two separate investigations, but no charges have been filed so far.
Neither the bishop nor Fikri has so far mentioned an explicit link between the 1998 allegations and the events of the last few days. Fikri stated that there had never been any sectarian incidents between citizens of Al Kosheh until this week. He did say, however, that there were "grudges" between the Christian and Muslim inhabitants of the town.
Al Ahram quoted unnamed security officials as saying that the violence was stirred up by people "in the service of some factions who want to harm the image of Egypt and cause problems in Christian-Muslim relations."
Prayers for Coptic Orthodox Christmas are scheduled to be held on 7 January. It is yet unannounced whether they will proceed as planned. State prosecutor Maher Abdel Wahed has ordered an investigation into the incident.