Ten hurt in Christian-Muslim clashes in Egypt

Cairo, May 12: Hundreds of Egyptian Muslims and Christians fought and hurled bricks at each other in clashes today south of Cairo in a dispute over building a church that erupted after Muslim prayers, security sources said.

At least 10 Christians were injured in the clashes that broke out in the village of Behma, about 60 km from the Egyptian capital, and four Christian shops were set on fire before police quelled the violence, the sources said.

Relations between Muslims and minority Christians in Egypt are generally peaceful despite sporadic outbreaks of violence.

Christians comprise up to 10 percent of the about 75 million Egyptians, with the remainder being primarily Sunni Muslim.

Restrictions on building churches have been one of the main grievances of Egypt's mainly Coptic Christian community.

Security sources said rumours that the Christians did not have a permit to build a planned church had sparked anger among Muslims in the village that erupted into violence after Friday prayers when about 300 Muslims clashed with a group of about 200 Christians.

Police intervened to stop the clashes and arrested 17 people from both faiths. Security sources said the shops that were burned were selling wood and construction materials. They had earlier identified the structures as houses.

Egypt suffered its worst Christian-Muslim clashes in decades in 1999, when 20 Christians were killed, 22 people wounded and scores of shops destroyed in sectarian strife in the southern village of Kosheh.

In February, Muslims set fire to Christian-owned shops in southern Egypt after hearing rumours of a love affair between a Muslim woman and a Coptic Christian man.

Last year, a 45-year-old Muslim man stabbed a Coptic Christian man to death and wounded five others in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, sparking three days of sectarian clashes in which one Muslim was killed. Egypt says the attacker was mentally ill.

Reuters>