In addition to burning and looting nearly 40 churches since the ousting of Egyptian president Mohammad Morsi in July, members of the Muslim Brotherhood torched a Franciscan school this weekend and paraded three nuns through the streets as if they were prisoners of war.

According to a report by the Associated Press, Sister Manal, 47, the principal of a Franciscan school located in Bani Suef,  was with two visiting nuns when a mob broke into the school and began looting its contents. They broke a cross off the street gate and replaced it with a black banner similar to the flag of Al-Qaida.

The nuns said they made several frantic calls to police, including some who had children at the school, and were promised help, but none came.

The marauders robbed the school of money, every computer, projector, desk and chair, then set the building on fire. The nuns were then ordered out of the school.

“We are nuns. We rely on God and the angels to protect us,” Sister Manal told the AP during a phone interview. “At the end, they paraded us like prisoners of war and hurled abuse at us as they led us from one alley to another without telling us where they were taking us.”

Finally, a Muslim woman named Saadiyah took them into her home and offered them safety. They accepted her offer when she told them that her son-in-law was a policeman.

Meanwhile, two other Christian woman who were employed at the school had to fight their way through the mob while being groped, hit and insulted by the crowd.

“I looked at that and it was very nasty,” Sister Manal said.

Since the uprising began a week ago, Christians have become a frequent target of insurgents who Muslims accuse of siding with the army against the Brotherhood.

In addition to destroying nearly 40 churches and damaged at least 23 others, other schools have also been attacked, such as a Catholic school and Christian orphanage in Minya.

Father Boulos Fahmy, pastor of a Catholic parish near the Franciscan school, told the AP: “I am terrified and unable to focus. I am expecting an attack on my church any time now.”

Bishop Ibram, the local head of the Coptic Orthodox church in Fayoum, just southwest of Cairo, said he told the faithful and clergy in his area not to resist the Islamist mobs because he feared they could lose their life.

“The looters were so diligent that they came back to one of the five churches they had ransacked to see if they can get more,” he told the AP. “They were loading our chairs and benches on trucks and when they had no space for more, they destroyed them.”

Christian business are also being attacked. In some areas, Muslims have begun to mark buildings with X’s to denote the faith of the owners – a black X for Christians and a red X for Muslim. Those with black X’s are then targeted, such as Bishoy Naguib’s home supply store in Minya which was torched last week.

“A neighbor called me and said the store was on fire. When I arrived, three extremists with knifes approached me menacingly when they realized I was the owner,” Naguib told the AP.

They were just about to attack him when someone shouted that a Christian boy was filming the whole scene on a cell phone and caused enough of a diversion that Naguib was able to escape.

Thus far, two Christians have been killed and more than 600 left dead in the wake of the recent violence.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis addressed the violence in Egypt, calling for prayer and an end to the conflict:  “I wish to ensure my prayers for all the victims and their families, the injured and all those who are suffering,” the Pope said before the Angelus prayer on August 15.

“Let us pray together for peace, dialogue and reconciliation in that dear nation and throughout the world.”

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