Egyptian Christian escapes Muslim abductors

Egyptian Christian escapes Muslim abductors

CAIRO, Egypt — An Egyptian Christian teenager escaped her Muslim kidnappers the first week in October hours after they had drugged her on a public bus and threatened to rape her and convert her to Islam if her family did not leave its Nile delta city of El-Mahala el-Kobra. Laurence Wagih Emil, 15, escaped the ground-floor room where she was being held in Cairo’s southern Helwan suburb at 10 p.m. Oct. 3 while her captors were away breaking their Ramadan fast. Her father, Wagih Emil, had received several threatening text messages from his daughter’s mobile phone. “Take the rest of your daughters and leave the city, or you will lose them one by one,” one of the messages said. “The girl is not accepting easily, but she will embrace Islam for sure.”

Before family members recovered her, State Security Investigation officials interviewing Laurence Emil told her she would never see her parents again unless she reported a false story denying the kidnapping.