A group of five Coptic families from the village of Kafr Darwish in Upper Egypt returned to their homes on 2 June after they were expelled following sectarian violence in the Beni Suef Governorate, 100 km south of Cairo.
The families were forced to leave their village after claims that one of the sons, Ayman Youssef Tawfiq, had uploaded cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to Facebook, sparking violence from gangs of Muslim youth, who attacked the homes and businesses of local Copts with stones and Molotov cocktails. During the violence, another group of Muslim youths are reported to have helped the Coptic families defend their homes, along with the police who reacted promptly.
Ordered to leave
Following a series of reconciliation meetings in the town of al-Fashn between the families, the local Coptic community, local Muslims and security staff, the five families were ordered to leave the village. Violence continued after the families were forcibly evicted from the village; their homes and fields were burnt, their crops destroyed and their cattle killed. The homes of ten other Coptic families were also reportedly set alight.
After the eviction, local Coptic families and church members were visited by the mayor of al-Fashn, Ahmed Maher, and Governor Muhammad Selim of Beni Suef, to discuss possible remedies that would allow the five families to return. In addition to these efforts, Beit al-A’ila (House of the Egyptian Family), an interfaith initiative which seeks to promote a culture of tolerance and militates against sectarianism, sent a delegation of Muslim clerics to al-Fashn to establish conditions for the families to return safely.
