Three churches were torched in Sohag province further to the south, a church, convent and school were set alight in the eastern province of Suez, as were a church and Bible Society premises in Fayoum province, west of the capital. It also reported assaults at a church in Alexandria.
According to Egypt’s independent Mideast Christian News service, eyewitnesses to one of the church attacks in Sohag reported seeing Muslim Brotherhood supporters hijack a fire truck to prevent it from attending the fire.
“These attacks on the Copts is unprecedented in the modern era,” Bishop Anba Suriel of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Melbourne, Australia, wrote on his Twitter account. “Will the world continue to standby passively amidst this injustice?”
An hour later, citing reports of more than 20 separate attacks, he tweeted again, “Where is the army?”