An Egyptian off-duty policeman boarded a train on Tuesday and opened fire, killing a 71-year-old Christian man and wounding his wife and four others, the Egyptian Ministry of Interior said.
The attack, less than two weeks after the suicide bombing of a church killed 21, sparked new demonstrations by enraged Christians who pelted police with stones in southern Egypt.
The church attack on worshipers leaving a New Year’s Mass in Alexandria touched off three days of riots and demonstrations by furious Christians who criticized the Egyptian government for failing to protect them and vented over what they see as persistent discrimination.
All of the casualties in Tuesday’s attack on the train were Christians — four of them women — raising concerns it will ignite a new wave of protests by a community still traumatized by the suicide bombing.
Soon after the attack, hundreds of angry Copts gathered outside the hospital where the wounded were being treated in Minya Governorate and stoned police.
It was not immediately clear whether the gunman knew his targets were Christians, but four of the five wounded were Christian women who stand out in the conservative south, as they probably would not have been wearing headscarves as most Muslim women do.
The ministry statement identified the policeman as Amer Ashour Abdel-Zaher, a 23-year-old Muslim, and said he boarded the Cairo-bound train at the town of Samalout and opened fire on the passengers with a handgun.
The statement said Abdel-Zaher, who was not wearing a uniform, was on his way to work at a town near Samalout. Police arrested him at his nearby home after he fled the scene and he was being questioned, according to the ministry statement.
The train originated in Assiut which, like Samalout, is home to a large Christian community.
The Egypt Ministry of Health said an air ambulance has been dispatched to airlift any critical cases to the capital.
Initially, the wounded were taken to a government-run hospital, but the families insisted they be transferred to the church-run Good Shepherd Hospital in Samalout, health ministry spokesman Abdel-Rahman Shahine said.
Many Christians say the authorities are not doing enough to protect them and even allege some members of the security services turn a blind eye to anti-Christian incidents. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has repeatedly said that the government will do its utmost to protect Egypt’s Christians.
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