Targeted by ISIS, Egyptian Christians Flee Violence<br />24, 2017<br />CAIRO — Dozens of Egyptian Christian families fled their homes in the northern Sinai Peninsula on Friday, driven by a targeted campaign of Islamist violence<br />that has killed at least seven people in recent weeks.<br />"This the natural result of state indifference." Earlier on Friday, Mr. Antoune helped<br />the wife of Kamel Youssef, the plumber who had been shot dead in El Arish on Thursday.<br />Their flight had been prompted by the release of an Islamic State video on Sunday<br />that vowed to step up attacks on the embattled Christian minority in Sinai.<br />On Thursday, a plumber in the city was shot dead in front of his wife and children at their home, according to aid workers and Christian leaders.<br />Mr. Rafaei said his constituents were in a "state of war,"<br />but another lawmaker from the area, Rahmi Abd Rabbo, tried to play down the violence, claiming that no more than five families had fled from Sinai.<br />The Islamic State affiliate in Sinai is small compared with Iraq or Syria, but it has been increasingly active in recent weeks.<br />The killings represent an escalation of a campaign announced by the Islamic State in December, when<br />a suicide bomber struck a prominent Cairo church during Sunday Mass, killing about 30 people.
