Chaos erupted in front of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Our Lady in Hadra, Egypt when two masked men on a motorcycle attached churchgoers participating in a wedding. The men opened fire on the crowd, killing 4 and injuring 12 people. Among the dead was a 9 year old child.
Attacks on Christians have increased exponentially after the ouster of former President Mohammed Morsi. Members of his political party, the Muslim Brotherhood, have been known to attack Christian Churches, due to the presence of the Coptic Pope, Theodoros II with the military chief who authorized the Morsi’s removal.
The Muslim Brotherhood, however, released a statement denouncing the attack and expressing condolences to the victims’ families.»We are saddened by the fact that the authorities backed by the military, instead of carrying out their duty to protect, continue to ignore the fire provoked in a deliberate form, vandalism and murder,” the statement read.
In an interview with Fides News Agency, Catholic Bishop of the Latin Rite Adel Zaki OFM, the Apostolic Vicar of Alexandria expressed doubts on the Muslim Brotherhood’s statement. Their apology, he said, «is a tactic already used by them on other occasions: they express their solidarity to the victims, and then what emerges is that the architects of the terrorist attacks are people related to them.
“Their goal is to cause chaos and then lay responsibility to the weakness of the government and the army that do not guarantee safety. The truth is manipulated to divide, and in this I see the work of the devil. They want to divide Christians and Muslims who together brought the downfall of Morsi’s Islamic regime. The bombings and attacks against Christians have now come to the capital. May the Lord save us.”
The Attorney General’s Office in Egypt has ordered an investigation into the attack.
