Stuck between a rock and a hard place Egypt's estimated 8 million Coptic Christians are the Middle East's largest non-Muslim minority but are also one of the saddest victims of today's war between the West and Islamic extremists. The epicentre of the campaign against the Christians is the volatile Egyptian South, the heartland of fundamentalist activity and home to the majority of Egypt's Copts. Coptic leaders say the fundamentalists are determined to drive the Copts out of the southern villages, whose emerald green fields they have tilled for centuries.
But in the past few years a new target for the fundamentalists has emerged: Hundreds of young women born into Egypt’s minority Christian Coptic community, have simply disappeared or left home under mysterious circumstances.
Across Cairo and the Nile Valley police and media have reported scores of missing Christian women: Surrounding most disappearances are allegations that the women have been kidnapped by Muslim men and forced to undergo conversion to Islam. A conversion carried out with intimidation violence and rape.