21 Coptic Christian Martyrs of Libya

Rare card · No. 39020

The 21 Coptic Christian Martyrs of Libya are Christian construction workers who were killed for their Christian faith by the Islamic State (IS), and subsequently canonized as martyrs and saints by Pope Tawadros II. On 12 February 2015, the Islamic State released a video online showing photos of 21 Christian construction workers—twenty from Egypt and one from Ghana—that they had kidnapped in the city of Sirte, Libya, and who they reported had been killed for their faith in Jesus Christ. The men, who came from different villages in Egypt, 13 of them from Al-Our, Minya Governorate, were kidnapped in Sirte on 27 December 2014, and in January 2015. On February 15, 2015, the Islamic State's media wing published a video online titled "A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross", in which the 21 captives were paraded on a beach before being beheaded. IS claimed that the executions were in retaliation for the alleged abduction of Kamilia Shehata. This was not the first time that Coptic...

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