CAIRO/MINYA: The Sammallout Prosecution Office in Minya detained 18 Copts and 12 Muslims for four days pending investigation after sectarian clashes broke out in El-Tayaba village, in which one Copt was killed and four injured, including a Muslim.
Gen. Gamal Gad, Minya police chief, said clashes erupted late Friday when Muslim youths allegedly sexually harassed a Christian woman. In the course of the fighting, the Christians were using knives while the Muslims had firearms.
Seventy-five percent of the village’s 30,000 residents are Christian.
Just three hours earlier, similar clashes had erupted after a Copt tried to sell his house, which is located in an all-Christian neighborhood, to a Muslim.
Fights broke out after the Christian neighbors were angered when the potential buyer dropped by to check the house.
Gad says heavy security forces have been deployed Saturday to the village.
Those arrested face charges of illegal gathering, vandalism, arson and battering to death.
Police however is still investigating the source of the bullet that killed 27-year-old Yeshua Gamal Nashed. Eye witnesses said that the bullet was fired a few minutes after the anti-riot police used teargas to disperse the mob.
The church and some of the village’s big families, both Muslim and Christian, suggested that the victim’s family would accept compensation in exchange for reconciliation, Gamal Nashed, the father of the victim, told Daily News Egypt in a phone interview.
“I told them that the deyya (cash compensation for the victim s family) and reconciliation are out of the question until I find out who killed my son, he said.
“They killed my son through no fault of his own. Justice has to take its course and the perpetrator needs to be punished regardless of who he is.
Nashed said that his son doesn’t know any of the disputing sides and that he had just returned from Libya to get married.
Nashed refused to receive condolences for his son’s death.
As the village remains under the siege of anti-riot police and relative calm has been restored, Priest Michael Kamel Wahib of the village’s Abu Sieveen Church told Daily News Egypt that Church leaders are still trying to convince Nashed to accept compensation and consider reconciliation.
However, if the family refuses, no one can blame them, Wahib added. -Additional reporting by Agencies
