Coptic Christians flee Sinai

CAIRO – 26 February 2017: Hundreds of Coptic Christians have left Egypt’s North Sinai governorate since Friday,

Reuters reported

. Church officials report that 100 of the area’s 160 Christian families, as well as 200 students studying in Arish, the governorate’s capital, have fled.

The New York Times reported

that many of the fleeing Christians gathered at a church compound in Ismailia. Some had brought little more than the clothes on their backs.

Last week, the Islamic State (IS) released a video vowing to increase attacks against Egyptian Christians. The video, coupled with the seven attacks on Christians in North Sinai in the span of a month, is believed to be the cause of the exodus.

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi ordered the government on Saturday to take all measures necessary to provide aid to the Christians who have fled to Ismailia,

state-owned Al-Ahram reported

.

"I am not going to wait for death," Rami Mina, who fled Friday morning, told Reuters by telephone. "I shut down my restaurant and got out of there. These people are ruthless."

Residents of Arish told Reuters that IS militants had circulated death lists online and on the streets, “warning Christians to leave or die.”

“They want to send a message that nobody is safe,” Mina Thabet, who works with the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms and who helped with the emergency effort in Ismailia, told the New York Times.

Attacks on Christians have been escalating since the Dec. 11 bombing of a chapel in St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo.

Copts are believed to make up approximately 10 percent of the population in Egypt.