Sectarian clashes erupt in Beni Suef

Clashes erupted between Muslim and Christian residents in a village near the upper Egyptian city of Beni Suef, the privately-owned Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper reported on Sunday. 

The clashes started when a Christian woman tried to build an artificial road bump in front of her house in the Diabiya village in Beni Suef, which angered her Muslim neighbor, the newspaper reported. The fight between the two women extended to the two families, the paper continued, citing Ibrahim Hadeeb, head of the Beni Suef Security Directorate. 

The fighting led a group of men to burn the facade of a church in the village and to burn four houses belonging to Christian families, the newspaper reported. 

The privately-owned Sada al-Balad website reported that the fighting started on Saturday and renewed on Sunday when a man stopped near the bump and started insulting the Christian family. 

Upper Egypt has seen several incidents of sectarian violence in the last month, particularly after the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi by the military on July 3, a move which angered his Islamist supporters across the country. 

In the Upper Egyptian city of Minya, hundreds of Christians and Muslims clashed for days in several villages last week following what started off as a verbal altercation between a Christian and a Muslim man. 

Sectarian violence has also been experienced elsewhere, notably in Cairo and Sinai, in recent weeks. 

Last week, 16 human rights organizations expressed their concern in a statement over the violent targeting of Christians and their churches since June 30. 

The statement called on the state to pursue its responsibility of protecting Christian citizens.