A 46-year-old Coptic woman, Amal Awad, from Alexandria was repeatedly stabbed in several places in her body as she headed home on the evening 0f 21 August 2017 after attending Vespers service on the eve of the Feast of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin.
As Ms Awad, who lives in the district of al-Hadra in Alexandria, left the church of the Holy Virgin and Archangel Raphael and walked home after the service, she felt someone was following her. In a few minutes she reached the gate to her home, but the man who followed her said “Excuse me” and quickly reached out from the back and held her, clamping his hand on her mouth. He took out a knife and stabbed her repeatedly; the medical report issued by the hospital says she was wounded by the knife in the abdomen, back, and left leg. Ms Amal hit out at him with a bag she was carrying; this made him drop the knife and lean down to catch it, in the process he took his hand off her mouth and she screamed; he stabbed her in the leg then, as people heard her scream and rushed to the rescue, he fled.
Ms Awad was moved to hospital and not available for interviews. Her doctor said her wounds had been treated and she was recovering well, even though she is a breast cancer patient.
