Land dispute escalates to attacks on Copts in Alexandria village

Coptic-owned homes and a church were attacked with rocks in an Alexandrian village Monday night, Copts Today website reported on Monday.

After police forces allegedly killed a man on Sunday during a failed attempt to return a land to its rightful Coptic owner, the bedouins of the village of Ola in the Amreya area in Alexandria attacked houses of Copts, according to the website’s report. This incident has reportedly sparked a sectarian feud that remains ongoing in the absence of state interference.

The priest of the Virgin Church, Father Boctor, told the website that he pled with police forces to interfere and protect the church and the houses of Copts but they never arrived.

In the absence of coverage in mainstream media outlets two days after the tension started, member of the Maspero Youth Union in Alexandria Ramy Qashwa gave an account of what happened to the Scream of a Nation program on Al-Horreya TV on Monday.

The dispute started when bedouins in the area took over the land of a Coptic citizen, Hamdy Makanoty, in 2012. Makanoty owned the land since 1995, until bedouins from Heweita tribe illegally took over in 2012. After failing to regain the land through seeking informal communal intervention, Makanoty turned to the law, filing and winning a court case that required that the land be returned to him.

A police force tried to enforce the verdict in 2014, however it withdrew after the aggressors gathered their allies from neighboring villages and attacked the forces with rocks. The forces returned on Sunday with a larger number and were also met with resistance from the aggressors. The police returned the attack with tear gas and rubber bullets which killed one man, according to Qashwa. The police force then withdrew.

Qashwa says that the tribe of the deceased held Makanoty responsible for his death and proceeded to attack the houses of his entire family, beating up relatives that were at the residences. Some have threatened to burn the houses of Makanoty and his family if they return.

Qashwa complained of the complete lack of security presence as the situation remains tense despite reports by citizens to security in Alexandria. Qashwa says that another tribe, Al Maghawra, protected the houses of the targeted Coptic family during the funeral of the deceased on Monday.

Ishaq Ibrahim, a researcher on religious freedoms at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) previously told Mada Masr that sectarian crimes against Egypt’s Christian community are allowed to continue with relative impunity.