December 29, 2017, two men arrived on board a motorcycle in front of the Coptic church of San Mena (Mar Mina), in Helwan district, south suburbs of Cairo, then opening fire.

One of the terrorists killed by the police, identified as Ibrahim Ismail Ismail, already author of other actions. The second attacker was arrested. In the last year the Christian minority has suffered several attacks, which have caused over one hundred deaths.

Thus ended, still in the blood, a very hard 2017 for the Coptic Christian community of Egypt, about 6 million people, 10% of the population, the largest religious minority in the country and the broader Christian community in the Middle East.

In the last year, it has been the target of numerous attacks carried out by militants of radical Islam that have caused more than a hundred deaths. Even 2016 ended in the same way: on 11 December a year ago an explosion had devastated a building that was part of the complex of the Coptic cathedral of San Marco in Cairo, in the Al Abasiya district, seat of the spiritual leader Pope Theodore II, one hundred and eighteenth Patriarch of Alexandria. The budget had been at least 25 dead, including six children, and 35 wounded. Massacre claimed by ISIS.