Attack outside Cairo church kills 3

Three people including an 8-year-old girl were killed when a gunman opened fire on a group of people leaving a wedding at Coptic church in Cairo.

The group was targeted as it emerged from the church in north Cairo's Al-Warak neighborhood, Egypt's interior ministry said. It said an 8-year-old girl, a woman and a man were killed and nine others wounded in the attack.

"There were two men on a motorbike and one of them opened fire," the ministry said.

Egypt's Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi said Monday that the Sunday attack was a "callous and criminal act."

He said such attacks will "not succeed in sowing divisions between the nation's Muslims and Christians."

Bishop Angelos, from the Coptic Orthodox Church in the U.K., told Al Jazeera: "It's terrible to see that in the light of recent attacks where Christians and Muslims are trying to get on with life, regardless of antagonism and violence, that even on a night like this, when people are trying to celebrate, people can lose loved ones."

He went on to say attacks against Christians have been taking place for a while, but there has been a heightening of tensions in recent months due to the political situation.

"There are still some who wrongly accuse the Christians to be responsible for the ousting of the former president, (Mohamed Morsi)" he said, adding that there is no justification for killing of an 8-year-old girl."

Egyptian Christians, the majority of whom are Copts, have been targeted since the removal of Morsi and in particular since an Aug. 14 crackdown by security forces on two Cairo camps of Morsi's Islamist supporters.

Islamists were enraged by the deadly crackdown and they accuse Coptic Chrisitians of backing the coup that toppled Morsi, who is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and was Egypt's first democratically elected president.

This perception was fuelled by the appearance of Coptic Pope Tawadros II alongside army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi when he announced on television Morsi's removal from office. Muslim leaders and other politicians were also present.

Rights groups say that Copts, who account for 6 to 10 percent of Egypt's 85 million people, have come under attack mainly in the provinces of Minya and Assiut in central Egypt.

On Oct. 9 London-based Amnesty International said that more than 200 Christian-owned properties were attacked and 43 churches seriously damaged across the country since the Aug. 14 crackdown against Morsi supporters in Cairo.

Al Jazeera and wire services