Beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya

The beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in Libya was a mass murder by fighters of the terrorist organization “ Islamic State ” (IS) of Coptic Christians on the beach in the west of the Libyan city ​​of Sirte in 2015.

The 21 victims of the murder known by name were guest workers in Libya. Twenty of the victims were Egyptian Copts, thirteen of them from El-Or in the governorate of al-Minya , and one of them a Christian from Ghana . You were kidnapped in two attacks in December 2014 and January 2015 by the Ansar al-Sharia group , which joined ISIS in October 2014.

Video

The deed was made known via an internet video. The five-minute film was released on February 15, 2015 under the title "A Message in Blood to the Nation of the Cross ."

The video shows how men in black drag the victims, who are uniformly dressed in orange overalls, to a beach. A spokesman for the group says that you are “today in the south of Rome, in Libya”. Addressed to the West, he declares: “We will soak the sea with your blood.” Then you can see how the extremists behead the victims .

Experts consider the video to be authentic. It is the first atrocity by the Libyan branch of the IS militia to be published in this way.

Reactions

The UN Security Council and the United States condemned the act. Egypt then let its air force attack IS positions in Libya. The Coptic Patriarch Tawadros II canonized the men and accepted them as martyrs in the Synaxarion .

funeral

On September 28, 2017, the Libyan Attorney General Al Sadiq al Sour announced that the place where the men were buried had been found. They are to be transferred to El-Or and buried in the new, 45 m high church that President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had built.

literature

• Martin Mosebach : The 21 - A Journey into the Land of the Coptic Martyrs , Rowohlt , Reinbek near Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-498045-40-1 .

See also

• Civil war in Libya 2014/15
• List of executions by the IS
• Persecution of the Copts
• Koscheh massacre

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mass beheading in Libya: IS murdered 21 Coptic Christians , publ. on Feb. 16, 2015 and released on Feb. 20, 2015 by faz.net
2. ↑ RT visits sites of ISIS executions in area freshly liberated by pro-govt Libyan fighters (EXCLUSIVE). Retrieved September 21, 2016 (en-EN). 
3. ↑ Der Spiegel 8/2018, p. 96, Walter Mayr: The Church of the Martyrs
4. ↑ "ISIL video shows the beheading of Christian Egyptians in Libya" ; Al Jazeera , February 16, 2015, accessed February 18, 2015
5. ^ After the murder of 21 Christians: Egypt flies air strikes against terrorist militia IS in Libya , publ. on Feb. 16, 2015 and posted on Feb. 20, 2015 by focus.de
6. ↑ Beheading of Coptic Christians in Libya: Egypt bombs IS positions , publ. on Feb. 16, 2015 and posted on Feb. 20, 2015 by sueddeutsche.de
7. ^ German Evangelical Alliance: Libya - mass grave of Christians found , accessed on February 19, 2018
8. ↑ Der Spiegel 8/2018, p. 96, Walter Mayr: The Church of the Martyrs