The geographic spread of violence

10. The majority of incidents of sectarian violence took place in Upper Egypt, specifically in the governorates of Beni Soueif, Minya, Assyout, Sohag, Qena, Luxor and Fayyoum. This set of governorates is also the most serious, in terms of the number of incidents (33), their severity (for example six Christians and one Muslim in their company were killed and nine other Christians injured in Naga Hammadi, located in the Qena governorate, on 6 January 2010) and the number of people involved (at times as many as 2,000, as was the case in attacks in the city of Dayrout, located in Assyout, on 24 October 2009).

11. The incidents in Upper Egypt are also the most serious in view of the broad geographic scope covered by single incidents, their relatively long duration and the losses resulting. An example is events that took place in Qena in the districts of Farshout and Abu Tisht and several adjacent villages. These lasted for five days, from 19 to 23 November 2009, and losses, according to victims, were estimated at more than LE4 million. Sectarian violence in Upper Egypt is also notable for the frequency with which it occurs, the variety of cases and the disparate locations. In Minya, for example, there has been an instance of sectarian violence every 35 days in 17 different villages located in seven of the governorate's nine districts.

12. Following behind was Lower Egypt and the Delta (Qalyoubiya, Monufiya, Dakahliya, Sharqiya, Gharbiya, Kafr al-Sheikh and Beheira, as well as Cairo, Giza and Alexandria), with 20 incidents. In this group, the site of the most violence was Dakahliya, where three separate incidents took place in February, June and August 2009; these incidents involved hundreds of people and led to serious material losses. Next in importance was the governorate of Monufiya, where one serious incident took place in which a Muslim killed one Christian and attempted to kill two others on 17 September 2009. The gravest incident in this set was the Zeitoun bombing in Cairo on 10 May 2009. Although there were no casualties, injuries, losses or damage to the Zeitoun diocese building, the fact that the bishopric was targeted with local explosives is extremely worrying.

13. The final geographic set includes the remaining 12 governorates, including all the border provinces (Matrouh, New Valley, Aswan, Red Sea, North and South Sinai), the three Canal governorates (Suez, Ismailiya and Port Said), the two new governorates in the Greater Cairo area (Helwan and October) and the coastal governorate of Damietta. EIPR researchers documented no cases of sectarian violence or tension in these areas in the period under review.¹

14.  Towns, villages and hamlets are the most common sites of sectarian violence, followed by provincial cities and then provincial capitals. A not insignificant number of incidents took place on Fridays, specifically after the Friday prayer, as well as on Sundays. Most of those involved were young men and male teenagers, followed by older men, and then women in a small percentage of cases.

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1-  During the writing of this report, on 12 March 2010, sectarian clashes took place in the Matrouh governorate for the first time.