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Alexandria suffers more sectarian confrontations

An injured Coptic protester runs to an ambulance outside the St. Maximus Church in Alexandria, Egypt, on Sunday, as the city suffered its third day of sectarian violence. PHOTO: AP

Police fired live ammunition into the air and lobbed tear gas into rioting crowds of Christians and Muslims in a third day of sectarian violence in Egypt's second-largest city.

One Muslim man reportedly died on Sunday of his wounds. Police said 40 people had been wounded in clashes and 80 had been arrested over the weekend.

The riots were touched off on Friday by knife attacks at three Coptic Christian churches, which killed one man and wounded up to 16 other people. A mentally ill man is being held for the stabbings.

Some 2,000 police fought on Sunday with 200 Coptic Christians who fled into St. Maximus Church in Alexandria, after they began hurling stones and bottles. Other demonstrators tossed Molotov cocktails from the balconies of nearby buildings.

Later, a huge mob of what appeared to be Muslim protesters charged the police cordon from the other side.

Security forces also used tear gas on Saturday to quash violence that erupted among several hundred Coptic Christians and Muslims at a funeral procession for the 78-year-old man killed on Friday outside the Saints Church in the Sidi Bishr district.

Sporadic scuffles continued after nightfall on Sunday.

Mustafa Mohammed Mustafa, a lawmaker, said a 24-year-old Muslim died on Sunday after being beaten by Christians a day earlier.

A judge in Alexandria on Sunday ordered the alleged perpetrator of Friday's attacks on the three churches, Mahmoud Salah-Eddin Abdel-Raziq, to be kept under observation at a mental hospital.

Abdel-Raziq had earlier been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Coptic Christians comprise 10 percent of Egypt's 73 million population and generally live in peace with the country's Muslim majority. But occasional sectarian clashes have broken out. Most recently, Muslim militants attacked churches in Alexandria protesting the distribution of a DVD that they deemed offensive to Islam. Four people were killed in those riots.

Officials said more security forces had been sent to Alexandria to maintain calm.

``We were afraid so we locked ourselves inside our houses, but they broke in and destroyed everything,'' Sami Aziz, a Muslim who said about eight Copts who stormed his home on Saturday night.

Ehab Sami, a Copt, said his electronics shop opposite St. Maximus was looted.

``It was the Muslims, and the police were collaborating with them. I asked the police to help me, but they didn't lift a finger,'' Sami said.
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