Cairo (CNN) -- Egypt's prime minister called for an emergency
Cabinet meeting Sunday, a day after officials reported at least 12
people were killed in sectarian clashes outside a Cairo church.
Officials
said the violence began over rumors that a Christian woman who
converted to Islam was being held at the church against her will.
Prime
Minister Essam Sharaf postponed a trip to Bahrain and the United Arab
Emirates to discuss the church attack, according to EgyNews, Egypt's
official news agency. Egyptian state TV said 10 people died and 232
were wounded in the violence Saturday. At least 190 were arrested.
Tensions
between Egypt's Muslim majority and its Coptic Christian minority have
been on the rise in recent months, with a number of violent clashes
reported between the two groups.
During clashes on Saturday, witnesses said an armed group of Muslims
marched on Saint Mena Coptic Orthodox Church, one of the oldest
churches in Egypt.
Witnesses said Muslims and Christians exchanged gunfire, sending people running for cover.
"With
my own eyes I saw three people killed and dozens injured," said Mina
Adel, a Christian resident. "There's no security here. There's a big
problem. People attacked us, and we have to protect ourselves."
There were conflicting reports about who attacked the church.
Some
witnesses said the group was made up of Muslim fundamentalists, known
as Salafists. Others, including Interior Ministry spokesman Alla
Mahmoud, said it was angry Muslims from a nearby mosque.
Mahmoud
said the clashes were sparked by reports of a Christian woman who
married a Muslim man and was allegedly being held inside the church.
Military,
special forces and riot police were called in to try to break up the
violence, firing warning shots in the air, according to witnesses.
At
the same time, at the nearby Coptic Church of the Holy Virgin,
firefighters responded to a blaze that witnesses said appeared to have
been started by the members of the same group that attacked the other
church.
Hundreds of residents in the working class
neighborhood of Imbaba stood outside as the church burned and two men
were seen jumping from a window of the building, according to
witnesses.
Across the street, residents standing outside the Al Wehda mosque blamed "thugs" for the violence.
"It
was thugs who burned the church, not Salafists (fundamentalists)," said
Jamal El Banan. "We never had such sedition before the revolution."
Tensions
were high in the neighborhood following the clashes, with soldiers
firing shots into the air overnight to break up the crowd, witnesses
said.
CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman,
based in Cairo, described the crowd as "very hostile," saying he was
forced to leave the neighborhood after his vehicle was targeted with
rocks.
A Coptic church in the town of Alexandria was bombed on
New Year's Day, killing 23 people -- the deadliest attack on Christians
in Egypt in recent times.
Ten days later, a gunman killed a Christian man and wounded five others on a train in Egypt.
In
November, a group with ties to al Qaeda in Iraq announced that all
Christians in the Middle East would be "legitimate targets," as the
group's deadline for Egypt's Coptic church to release alleged Muslim
female prisoners expired.
The group's claim that the Coptic
Church in Egypt is holding female prisoners is based on widespread
rumors of Coptic women in Egypt converting to Islam and being detained
by the church in an attempt to compel or persuade them to return to
their original faith.
About 9% of Egypt's 80 million residents
are Coptic Christians. They base their theology on the teachings of the
Apostle Mark, who introduced Christianity to Egypt, according to St.
Takla Church in Alexandria, the capital of Coptic Christianity.
The religion split with other Christians in the 5th century over the definition of the divinity of Jesus Christ.
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