A priest and three
deacons are missing following an attack last Friday night by about 4,000
Muslims in the town of Soul (30 kilometres south of Cairo) against the
local Coptic community.
The mob attacked Christian homes and set fire to
the Saints Mina and George Coptic Church, ostensibly because of a
relationship between a Christian man and a Muslim woman.
Witnesses report the mob prevented the fire brigade
from entering the village.
Father Yosha, the priest of the small parish,
and three deacons have been reported missing with different accounts of
their fate.
Some believe they died in the fire that devastated the
church building. Others say they are still held by Muslims in one of the
parish buildings.
When the Muslim mob attacked the church, they exploded
five or six gas cylinders inside the
church, desecrated the cross and
pulled down the domes.
Soldiers stationed in the village of Bromil, seven
kilometres from Soul, initially refused to go into Soul.
When the army
finally sent troops to the village, Muslim elders sent them away, saying
that everything was "in order now."
A curfew was imposed on the 12,000
Christians of the town.
The incident was sparked by the involvement of a
Coptic man, Ashraf Iskander, with a Muslim woman.
The father of the
Muslim woman was killed by his cousin because he did not kill his
daughter to preserve the family's honour.
This in turn led the woman's
brother to avenge the death of their father by killing the cousin.
Muslims then blamed the murders on Christians.