By Amy Penn

07/11/2017 Washington, D.C. (International Christian Concern) – July 3, 2017 marked the 40-day anniversary of an attack that claimed the lives of at least 35 Coptic Christians and injured more than 25. On May 26, “10 masked [militants] in four 4×4 vehicles intercepted [the caravan] …and opened fire” on two buses and two trucks filled with Christians traveling to work or to pray at the St. Samuel Monastery in Minya province, Egypt. One source told us, “The militants carried out this attack very carefully; they knew the details of the trip…its time and ambushed the buses…”

But the attack, now known as the St. Samuel massacre, wasn’t supposed to be a trip of pain and trauma. One survivor, a woman named Mariam, told us, “We decided to visit the monastery… [as a] family trip [and] we would spend all day there….”

During most of the trip, despite the bus’s occasional break-downs, Mariam remembers everyone was “very, very happy. We were singing on the bus, especially because it was a family trip and everyone on the bus were my relatives…”

For the men in the trucks, it wasn’t a family outing. Rather, it was a work trip for men like Ayed Habib Twadros and Nasef Ayad to repair St. Samuel’s bells. Ayed was a 45-year old factory worker traveling with his two sons and six other workers. Nasef was helping repair the bells to pay for his wife’s recent cataract surgery and help save for her $11 glasses.

After the attack, Nasef’s wife will have to find another way to pay for her glasses.

Mariam vividly remembers every detail of the attack that claimed the lives of six of her relatives including her husband, brother, father-in-law, brother-in-law, 15-year-old nephew, and five-year-old niece.

“We heard a strange sound…and thought a short circuit had happened with the bus. The bus was burning, [so] my husband Sameh and my brother Hany pushed the bus’s doors open to rescue us.” But safety did not greet Sameh outside the bus.

“After he got out of the bus, he closed its door [and] masked gunmen saw my husband and shot him in the head, instantly killing him. When I saw him killed, I said, ‘Do your will, O God.’”

For the next several minutes, the militants tried to enter the bus. They indiscriminately fired their weapons into the windows and doors while the bus burned. Their random shots hit the driver three times, killing him and breaking a window the militants used to enter the bus.

Once on the bus, “they asked us to recite the Islamic Shahada creed [to convert to Islam], but we refused. We told them we are Christians and will die Christians.”

Such faith angered the militants, so they shot the men starting with Mariam’s brother, Hany. As bullets flew, more people than the men died. After Mariam’s father-in-law, brother-in-law, and 15-year-old nephew died, she realized that her five-year-old niece had also been shot and killed.

After that round of shooting was over, the militants asked Mariam and the other women still alive to give them their jewelry, which the women did. But the militants didn’t leave. “After we gave them our jewelry, they shot at us, injuring some of us including my mother-in-law and [sister]. When they were shooting…we were praying and shouting, ‘Oh, Jesus!’” But such a prayer intensified the shooting because the militants “didn’t want us to pray or to say Jesus.”

It wasn’t until the militants saw a truck approaching that they stopped firing at the survivors in the bus. As Mariam looked for her children in the midst of her dead and wounded family members, the militants preyed on the pickup trucks full of workers.

Emad Twadros, Ayed’s 14-year-old son, recalled what happened at the truck, “A man dressed in an army military uniform carrying an automatic weapon forced my father to stop [the truck]. We then saw other militants exiting the bus and coming towards us.”

The masked gunmen ordered Emad’s father out of the truck and to show them his identification. “They asked him if he was a Christian, he said yes, and they asked to him to convert to Islam…he refused.” Emad and his 10-year old brother, Ashraf, then watched the militants kill their father.

After executing Emad and Ashraf’s father, the militants grabbed the rest of the workers and asked them to convert. They refused and they too died as the militants shouted, “Allahu Akbar.”

Mariam saw the militants kill the workers then turn back towards the bus.

“After [they killed the men in the trucks] they came back to our bus and opened fire on its engine. They wanted to burn all the dead and alive passengers, but the fire did not take off.  God saved us.”

Finally, the militants left and Mariam stumbled out of the bus toward the road in hopes of calling for help. Because she was in the middle of the desert, her cell phone didn’t have service, so she tried to flag a car down. Drivers saw her and the smoking bus and kept driving. When someone finally drove Mariam to a place where she could use her cell phone, she called the authorities for help.

Rather than receiving a sympathetic officer or the assurance that help was on its way, Mariam was accused of filing a false report. The police officer requested her identification number so that he could file a complaint against her.

Mariam couldn’t even find justice or support from the law, but that’s nothing new.

Muslim radicals have increasingly targeted Coptic Christians, calling them “their favorite prey.”   Just this year, militants detonated bombs in two Egyptian churches on Palm Sunday and executed eight Christians in El-Arish, Egypt, which forced more than 300 families to flee for safety.

Despite continued attacks and threats from Muslim militants, government activity is minimal. President al-Sisi declared a state of emergency, but that has only given him the freedom to crack down on political enemies rather than protect innocent civilians like Coptic Christians. As Mariam’s story reveals, the government will even accuse Christians of filing false reports rather than seeking justice. What are Coptic Christians supposed to do in the midst of such injustice and tragedy?

Grief and rage exist. At the funeral services of the Christians who died in St. Samuel’s massacre, attendees chanted, “We will avenge them or die like them.” “With our souls and blood, we will redeem you, oh cross.” “Oh, God!” Yet in the midst of anger, these Christians understand that Christ has called them to more than revenge or hatred.

Fr. Elisha admitted, “I want to say to those terrorists who killed our martyrs, we forgive you and love you because our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, came to redeem all of mankind…Christ has [said]…love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

Rather than seeking vengeance, Egypt’s Coptic Christians want to “plant the love and tolerance inside our children from their childhood, so they can live in love and tolerance when they grow up.” After St. Samuel’s massacre, it is hard to imagine Egypt as a place of love and tolerance, but that is what Christians seek. In the midst of hatred, violence, bloodshed, fear, and terror, Christians boldly choose to follow Christ’s teaching regardless of the consequences. It’s an insane choice in a mad world.