Clashes in Egypt between Coptic Christians and Muslims

CAIRO, Jan 07, 2010 (AFP) - Tensions often run high between Muslim and Christian communities in Egypt, where six Coptic Christians and a Muslim policeman were killed in a drive-by shooting late on Wednesday

Copts, who make up around 10 percent of Egypt's population of some 80 million, often complain about systematic discrimination and harrassment.

Here are the main clashes over the past three decades.

- June 17, 1981: Fourteen are killed and 50 hurt during clashes between Copts and Muslims that officials said were unleashed by a simple row between two neighbours. Witnesses said the conflict was about a slice of land where a church was to be built and that Muslims had occupied to build a mosque.

- May 4, 1992: Thirteen Christians and a Muslim are killed in clashes at Manshiyet Nasser, a village in southern Egypt, unleashed by the death in March of a Muslim following a conflict over the purchase of a house.

- February 12, 1997: Nine Copts are killed in an attack by Muslim militants on worshippers in front of a church at Abu Qurqas in southern Egypt.

- January 3, 2000: Twenty Copts die in clashes with Muslims in the village of Kosheh in southern Egypt, in the worst sectarian violence in two decades.

- April 14, 2006: A Muslim workman, described by the authorities as unbalanced, attacks three churches in Egypt's second city of Alexandria, killing a 78-year-old Copt. One person is killed in the clashes between Copts and Muslims that follow.

- May 29, 2008: Four Copts are killed in a botched jewellery heist in Cairo. Police later arrest an alleged cell of militant Islamists they say were responsible for the attack.

- May 31, 2008: One Muslim attacker is killed and four Copts, including two monks, are injured when a land dispute involving the historic monastery of Abu Fena turns violent. Three other monks are also abducted.

The clashes broke out when the Abu Fana monastery began building a wall around neighbouring property after receiving approval earlier in the year.

- October 6, 2009: Two Copts break into an apartment and kill a Muslim man married to the gunmen's relative. A court later sentences the two to death.

- January 6, 2010: Six Copts and a policeman are killed when gunmen open fire on shoppers in Nagaa Hammadi in southern Egypt on their Christmas Eve.

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