The Coptic Christian community of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is under siege from a growing number of militant Islamists, including ISIS members, who target them for death because of their faith.
(FOX)- The Sinai Peninsula –where northeastern Egypt shares its borders with Gaza and Israel– has been the center of an ongoing conflict between Islamists and Egyptian forces for years, but in recent times the Islamic State and their local affiliates known as the “Sinai Province,” have been attempting to drive the Coptic population out of the northern Mediterranean city of Al Arish.
While the Christian population of this city has had to flee from threats before, their plight has taken a dark turn in 2017. With a recent call from ISIS for the Copts on the peninsula to be killed; over 100 families had to flee amid attacks and even the executions of their loved ones.
Egypt’s Coptic Christians, who make up around 10 percent of the population, have long been a target of Islamic extremists. Attacks on churches by Muslim mobs increased since the 2013 military coup that ousted an Islamist preisdient, Mohamed Morsi. Christians overwhelmingly supported the army chief-turned-president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, and extremists have used such support as a pretext to increase attacks against them.
Christians in northern Sinai have been fleeing in droves in recent years because of the militant threats, and the community that before 2011 numbered up to 5,000 has now dwindled to fewer than 1,000, according to The Associated Press. There are no official statistics on the number of Christians in cities or across the country.