Fresh sectarian clashes erupt in Egypt's Minya

A fresh wave of sectarian-inspired clashes have broken out in the Egyptian city of Minya, local media reported on Tuesday.

Violence in the religiously mixed city in Upper Egypt, some 200km south of Cairo, reportedly spread from the nearby Yaacoub village following a dispute. Around a dozen people have been arrested, various news agencies said.

According to privately owned ONA news agency, the local Muslim population took to the streets and pelted Christian houses with Molotov cocktails after hearing that the villages Coptic residents were planning on building a new church.

Local Coptic sources told ONA that the situation was now stable and that the community would still seek to build the church after it applied for the proper authorisation and received the adequate paperwork. The issue of church building has long been contentious with Copts requiring presidential permission to build new churches, restriction the Christian community has long tried to have lifted.

However, the official al-Ahram newspaper said that the clashes were ignited by a feud between a rival Muslim and Christian farming family that promptly spread to the village and beyond.

Tensions in Minya and its neighbouring villages remain high. The area hosted some of the worst sectarian violence seen in Cairo following the 2011 overthrow of former strongman Hosni Mubarak and then overthrow of Egypt’s first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi.

Minya is also home to one of Egypt’s most controversial courts, which is responsible for the lion’s share of death sentences issued at mass trials to alleged Muslim Brotherhood supporters during the last year.