Photo by Jonathan Rashad
The residents of Al Aour, a dusty village in the Egypt's Minya Governorate, are struggling to come to terms with their loss. Thirteen of their relatives were among the 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians beheaded by the Islamic State on a beach in Libya, and featured in a recent video released by the extremist group.As the graphic footage was paraded online by Islamic State (also referred to as ISIS) supporters, it reached Al Aour, just south of Cairo, on the same day. The screams of women and children soon echoed through the village. Yet amid the sadness, the majority of the village inhabitants surprisingly expressed a sense of happiness regarding the killings of their relatives.The village received the news of the deaths with shock and agony, but it also evoked different images for them. The image of martyrdom. The image of heroes. "I am happy for my relatives. They had faith in God. They had faith in Jesus Christ. And that is what matters. They died for their faith. They died for Christianity," 43-year-old Bishop Feloubes Fawzy, who lost his nephew and four of his cousins, told VICE News.In memory of the victims, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has announced plans to build a new church for their relatives in the village. "It will be named the Church of the Martyrs," one of the relatives told VICE News.The victims were kidnapped in early January in the coastal Libyan city of Sirte, when masked gunmen knocked down the door of a dormitory of Egyptian workers. Before a revolution ousted former Libyan president, Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, there were around 2 million Egyptian migrants in the country. Today there are around 750,000, although thousands have reportedly returned recently.The 21 victims were migrant laborers who travelled the 1,200 miles to Libya to find work to feed their families. Most of them worked in construction. Shenouda Shokry, 23, a farmer who travelled to Libya twice for work, and a brother of one of the victims, told VICE News that Egyptian workers initially have to pay an average of 8,000 Egyptian pounds ($1,050) to get a Libyan visa through an agency. Most make the long journey by land.Related: Islamic State threatens to 'conquer Rome' in gruesome video that shows 21 beheadings. Read more here.Egypt is a historic and vital place for Christianity. Copts, Egypt's native Christians, currently constitute the largest Christian community in the Middle East, and the largest religious minority in the region.The recent Islamic State video makes reference to Egyptian women Camilia Shehata, the wife of a Coptic priest whose alleged conversion to Islam sparked a sectarian dispute in Egypt back in 2010. After the beheadings, a caption on the footage said: "The filthy blood is just some of what awaits you, in revenge for Camilia and her sisters."In retaliation, Egypt carried out air strikes against 13 Islamic State targets in Libya, marking the first time Egypt had publicly acknowledged taking military action in the neighboring country. A spokesman for Egyptian Armed Forces General Command stated that the attacks were, "to avenge the bloodshed and to seek retribution from the killers."Related: Islamic State video purportedly shows captured Kurdish fighters paraded in cages. Read more here.
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