Egypt killings shock Coptic Christians on Long Island

Coptic Christians on Long Island expressed shock and horror over Friday’s terrorist killings of at least 26 of the Christian minority in Egypt, and demanded the world step in to stop the bloodshed.

“It is very, very bad,” said Nabil Awad, an engineer from Islip Terrace and a Coptic Christian who moved here in 1979. “These are kids, children that have nothing to do with the problem” between terrorists and Christians. “They were going to a monastery to pray to God.”

His wife, Magda, said, “I am very upset, especially for the families who lost their kids. . . . Those evil people, I don’t see any unifying effort from the world to stop that terror. They have a goal to conquer the whole world, including America.”

The couple were particularly appalled by the bloodshed because they followed attacks on Palm Sunday against two Coptic Christian churches in Egypt in which at least 78 people were killed.

Still, they did not blame Muslims in general. “It’s not a question of religion,” Nabil Awad said. “It’s a question of terrorists. Some people put in their heads that this is the way you are going to heaven, if you kill a Coptic Christian.”

The Rev. Luke Awad of the Coptic Orthodox Church of St. George in Brooklyn said: “It’s a little bit shocking for us. The government is not doing anything about it until now. It keeps happening over and over.”

“But we have faith in God,” he added. “We just wait for God to intervene.”

Mohsen Elsayed, a Muslim who is director of finance for the Town of Islip, said he grew up in a heavily Coptic Christian area of Cairo. He said he was stunned and outraged by Friday’s killings, especially because he has enjoyed warm friendships with Coptic Christians in Egypt and here.

“We never had this kind of issue,” Elsayed said. “My heart breaks to hear this kind of thing happened to them.”

“We were like one family, we ate together, we went out together,” he said. “What happened to our Egypt? I don’t understand it. Who is behind all this nonsense? I cry, I feel sorry and I feel bad and I don’t know what to do to stop this bloodbath in Egypt and the world.”