CAIRO, Jan 8, (AFP): Egyptian police on Friday arrested three suspects in a Christmas Eve shooting that killed six Copts and sent shock waves through the country’s Christian minority, the interior ministry said.
Police had scoured sugarcane fields for the three suspects in the shooting which struck the southern Egyptian town Nagaa Hammadi on Wednesday, the night before Coptic Christmas.
“As a result of the security services’ efforts to arrest the criminals (behind) the killing of seven citizens in Nagaa Hammadi, on Friday morning Mohammed al-Kawmi, Kurshi Abul Haggag and Hindawi Hassan surrendered,” the statement said.
The three men, who were arrested close to Nagaa Hammadi, are alleged to be the gunmen who opened fire on Copts as they emerged from midnight mass.
The gunmen raked pedestrians along a stretch of road that houses two churches and a shopping mall, leaving pools of blood on the roadside.

A Muslim policeman was also killed in the attack.
The suspects all have previous convictions, the interior ministry said.
Police believe the attack was related to the alleged rape of a Muslim girl by a Coptic man in the nearby village of Farshut in November.
Muslim villagers responded to that incident by burning Coptic-owned stores in Farshut and surrounded a police station where the Coptic suspect was held.
Nagaa Hammadi’s Bishop Kirilos told AFP that for the past week some of his parishioners had received threatening phone calls.
The callers said Muslims “will avenge the rape of the girl during the Christmas celebrations,” Kirilos said.
Coptic mourners clashed with police on Thursday as they buried their dead. The shooting raised tensions in southern Egypt, where there have been repeated sectarian clashes in the past.
Wednesday’s attack, which also wounded six people, was the deadliest since 20 Copts were killed in sectarian clashes in 2000, also in southern Egypt.

Copts, who account for up to 10 percent of Egypt’s population of 80 million, are the Middle East’s largest Christian community but complain of routine discrimination and harassment.
They have two ministers in government and several members of parliament, but face restrictions on building churches, which must be approved by a presidential decree, and have get security and provincial clearance to refurbish existing churches.
Christians must stick together against oppression, a senior Vatican official told the head of the Coptic Church Friday following the murder of six Copts in Egypt.
“All Christians must remain united in the face of oppression and seek together the peace that only Christ can give,” Cardinal Walter Kasper said in a letter to patriarch Shenuda III, released by the Vatican.
Kasper, head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, also said he had been saddened to learn of the shootings after Christmas midnight mass in the southern town of Nagaa Hamadi.

“Each time Christians suffer unjustly it is a wound in the body of Christ which all believers share,” he said, adding, “together we share this sadness and together we pray for healing, peace and justice.”
Three gunmen sprayed Christian passersby with bullets as they emerged from the mass late Wednesday on the eve of Coptic Christmas.
A Muslim policeman was also killed in the attack.
The interior ministry said Friday that three suspects had surrendered to police after they were surrounded on a farm close to the town.
Police believe the attack was related to the alleged rape of a Muslim girl by a Coptic man in the nearby village of Farshut in November which had already sparked attacks on Coptic-owned stores.
Britain condemned Thursday the fatal shooting of an Egyptian policeman at the border with the Gaza Strip and deplored the violence “from all quarters.”

The Egyptian policeman was killed in cross-border gunfire on Wednesday in the border town of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. The officer died during a Palestinian protest on the border, officials have said.
“The UK government condemns the shooting of an Egyptian border guard... and deplores the violence from all quarters,” the Foreign Office said in a statement.
It also said it had raised with Egyptian authorities the issue of clashes on Tuesday between Egyptian police and pro-Palestinian activists trying to get a relief convoy into Gaza.
The fighting injured more than 50 people after activists from the Viva Palestina convoy broke down the gate at the Egyptian port of El-Arish, according to activists and medics.
Members of the convoy smashed through the gate in protest at an Egyptian decision to ship some of their goods through Israel.
The ministry added it had also expressed concern over reports that one or more British citizens may have been detained.