WATCH: Remains of Coptic Christians martyred by ISIS in Libya returned to Egypt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71BXNzaoDQ8

The poignant video above shows the caskets arriving in Cairo yesterday.

The story, from AFP:  

The remains of 20 Egyptian Coptic Christians executed by the Islamic State group in 2015 near the Libyan city of Sirte, the jihadists’ former bastion in the country, arrived home on Monday, an official at Cairo airport said.

Egypt’s Coptic Church head Pope Tawadros II was at the airport to receive the remains, which were flown from Misrata on a Libyan Afriqiyah Airways cargo plane.

The bodies of the 20 Egyptian men and one dark-skinned man whom a medical examiner believes to be from sub-Saharan Africa were found in October near Sirte.

The doctor, Othman al-Zentani, said identifying the bodies was “not an easy task”, as they had decomposed and the heads had been separated from the torsos.

DNA samples sent by families of the victims were vital to the identification process, Zentani said.

On February 15, 2015, IS broadcast a video showing the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians abducted in January that year in western Libya.

Read more. 

Last year, Pope Tawadros II announced the inclusion of the Coptic martyrs in the Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox Church.  Earlier this year, a new church in Egypt was dedicated in their honor.

May they pray for all of us—and especially, for their beloved homeland.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them…