Two Coptic Christians, a father and his son, were found murdered Wednesday (February 22nd) in North Sinai, where the Egyptian army has been battling the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL), AFP reported.
Police and medics said the son was found having apparently been burnt alive while the father, a man in his 60s, had been riddled with bullets.
Their bodies were discovered at dawn behind a school in al-Arish.
ISIL, which has mostly targeted Egypt's security forces, warned on Sunday it would set its sights on the country's Christian minority.
On December 11th, the group claimed a suicide bombing at a Coptic church in Cairo that killed 29 people.
Masked assailants on a motorbike on February 12th gunned down a Coptic veterinarian at the wheel of his car in al-Arish, where gunmen killed a 35-year Christian civil servant in January.
Meanwhile, representatives of Al-Azhar institution and the Vatican held talks in Cairo on Wednesday following up on a rapprochement launched in 2016.
Their meeting focused on the role of Al-Azhar and the Vatican "in countering fanaticism, extremism and violence", Al-Azhar said in a statement.
"Dialogue must prevail between men to dissipate... differences, and religion is capable of overcoming discord with tolerance," Mahmoud Zaqzouq of Al-Azhar said in an opening address.
Pope Francis hosted Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayeb at the Vatican in May.
