A church façade blackened by fire and anger towered high as an unmistakeable testimony to intolerance a few hours after sectarian clashes swept through the poor residential district of Imbaba Saturday night. Pieces of broken stone covered the bloodstained ground, while groups of people formed in every corner to recount details from the darkest day in the history of this residential area, which is inhabited by a mix of Muslim and Christian civil servants and professionals. “This was terrible, more horrific than I can tell. It was real warfare,” said Essam Hamdy, an Imbaba resident who had seen the war between Muslims and Christians unfold as dark started to blanket the sky on Saturday. “I saw people totally out of their mind bent on killing each other for no reason,” he told the Egyptian Mail in an interview from the site of the deadly clashes. Behind Hamdy and on the fence around Mar Mina Church, which was torched by Muslim attackers, half a cross stood as a manifestation of the destruction of religious peace between Egyptians, a destruction brought about by the religious animosity that continued to prevail between the nation's Muslim majority and its Christian minority. Soldiers wearing red berets and others wearing khaki ones stood at the entrance to the street to prevent another flare-up of religious ignorance in this area. The general mood among the residents, however, was one of expectation and preparation. “It can all explode once again at any moment as long as unreasoned hatred continues to fill the hearts and the minds of everybody,” said one of the residents, as she snapped the scene on her mobile phone camera. A few kilometres away and inside the Mari Girgis Church in Giza, the heat of Christian anger gave credence to this resident's expectations. Hundreds of Christians gathered at the church to attend a service there and also express their anger at the Imbaba church attack. “We want foreign intervention,” said one of the faithful. “We need foreign protection as long as the Government is not able to protect us,” he added. Hundreds of his fellow church-goers blocked the road and called for retaliation. They raised the cross high and chanted a large number of slogans, such as “With our souls, with our blood, we protect the cross”. A group of self-appointed security guards stood at the gate of the church and asked those who entered to either show the crosses tattooed on their wrists or their identity cards. Muslims were barred in this area. Any reference to Muslims was not allowed. “We should burn down the mosques as Muslims do our churches,” said one of the demonstrators to a group of friends. “God will retaliate, no way,” said another. Retaliation seemed to be the desire of everybody here and everywhere else. It was a desire resistant to all calls by the nation's preachers and priests, by the church and Al-Azhar to the contrary. The Mufti Ali Gomaa, one of the nation's top Muslim clerics, told Egyptian radio that the attackers of the church had nothing to do with Islam. He called on Egyptians to unify against what he described as an “organised” campaign to cut Egypt to pieces. But this did not prevent a group of Muslims from pelting with stones Christians sitting outside the Radio and Television Building near Al Tahrir Square in protest against the Imbaba attacks. The Christians retaliated with an avalanche of stones as well. A church priest, a short time later, warned against a potential civil war. “I hope the Christians do not resort to arms to defend themselves,” the priest said.
