Largely eclipsed by the military’s crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood protest camps in Cairo and resulting loss of life, more than 20 churches in a number of provinces were reported to have been targeted for arson and other attacks.
Through the day news reports and social media posts drew attention to individual incidents and it soon became apparent that a concerted campaign of coordinated attacks was underway. Most of the targeted churches were Coptic Orthodox, but Catholic churches were also attacked as well as at least one Protestant church.
One of the groups monitoring the situation through contacts on the ground, the Australian Coptic Movement Association (ACM), released a list of 16 churches and related sites attacked, and said the true figure could reach 40.
Those it listed included six churches and the house of a parish priest in Minya province, south-west of Cairo, among them a Church of the Virgin Mary which the ACM reported had been “totally demolished.”