Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 15 February 2026
21 martyrs of libya, the
Tamara L. Siuda Keywords: Coptic art; Coptic Church; Copts; Hagiography; isis (Organization); Martyrdom; Martyrs, Coptic; Martyrs--Cult; Miracles; Persecution; Saints; Synaxarion; Terrorism; Torture; 21 Martyrs of Libya Figure 1: The 21 Martyrs of Libya were martyred on the beach near Sirte, Libya and their deaths were the subject of a video broadcast globally by their kidnappers on February 15, 2015.
This image is a still frame from that video.
In mid-February 2015, twenty-one migrant workers who had been kidnapped by Islamist terrorists were murdered on a beach in Libya, after refusing to renounce their Christian faith. These men— twenty Copts from Upper Egypt and an additional man from Ghana—were subsequently recognized by the Coptic Orthodox Church as part of a new wave of contemporary coptic
A gruesome execution video (Figure 1) was broadcast by the terrorists and resulted in international outrage, as well as an outpouring of support for Egypt and the Copts (Malsin 2015). The addition of the 21 Martyrs of Libya, as they came to be known, to the Coptic synaxarion and to Coptic Orthodox devotion occurred quickly after their martyrdom (Samaan 2015), which was perpetrated by an affiliate of the terrorist organization known in Arabic as Daesh, also called Islamic State (IS), Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (isis), or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (isil).
The evolution of the 21 Martyrs’ veneration, from the moment of their “videotaped instantaneous sainthood” (Youssef 2015a), to their unexpected inclusion in the Roman Martyrology by the Catholic Pope Francis on May 11, 2023 (Dicastery 2023), and as it continues today, is a testament to the memory of these men, as well as an opportunity to witness Coptic martyrdom in motion. The 21 Martyrs of Libya are an important example of a contemporary Coptic martyrology coming into being in real time, rather than the typical experience of Christian martyrology via narratives situated in a distant past.
© Claremont Graduate University 1 Tamara L. Siuda: 21 Martyrs of Libya, The 15 February 2026 A Message Signed With Blood On or about December 27, 2014, in several incidents, a Daesh affiliate in Libya kidnapped twenty Egyptian workers near Sirte. They were Coptic Christians, ranging in age from 22 to 46, and fifteen of them were relatives or friends from Al-‘Our, a village near Samalut in the Minya Governorate. The other five came from the surrounding area (Heo 2018: 238 and note 2). A twenty-first hostage, a Ghanaian Christian named Matthew Ayariga and previously unknown to the twenty Copts, was kidnapped around the same time. Muslim coworkers returned to Egypt to report the kidnappings and find help, but for weeks, neither the coworkers nor the kidnapped men’s families knew anything about their fate (Heo 2018: 250).
According to later trial testimony, Daesh imprisoned and tortured all 21 men throughout January. On February 12, 2015, a Daesh magazine, Dabiq, showed photographs of the captives, and threatened to kill the “Coptic crusaders” (Dabiq 2015: 30). Three days later, on February 15, a horrific five-minute video of their execution was uploaded to the Internet by Al-Hayat Media Center, Daesh’s official non-Arabic media organization, and it quickly went viral (Ahram Online 2015). Like many of the martyrs of the period immediately following the arab conquest of egypt, the 21 Martyrs of Libya were beheaded, recalling a time when this execution method was designated as a specific punishment for Christians who refused to abandon their faith. It was also the primary method by which Copts gained martyrdom during the early years of Islamic rule in Egypt (Atiya 1991: 1550b).
The execution video, entitled “A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross,” was shared to Daesh social media channels on YouTube and other services. In the video, the 21 men, who are referred to as “the people of the cross, the followers of the hostile Egyptian church” in Arabic captions with English subtitles, are marched in single file across a beach, dressed in orange prison jumpsuits. Their hands are bound behind their backs with plastic zip ties, and each man is personally escorted by a knife-wielding executioner dressed in black, except for their leader, who wears military camouflage with a balaclava (Mosebach 2020: 21).
After the 21 men cross the beach, they are lined up shoulder to shoulder and forced to kneel, with an executioner standing behind each man. The leader, at the center, makes a speech condemning alleged crimes against Muslims at the hands of “crusaders.” Immediately after he finishes speaking, the executioners force their captives into the sand, and they are beheaded. The video cuts away to end with images of the martyrs’ faces and disfigured corpses, then the beach and finally the churning ocean, as it grows red with their blood.
The World Reacts In contrast with a general lack of reaction to most other killings of Copts over the last century, the reaction to the execution of the 21 Martyrs was swift, strong, and remarkably widespread. Global religious leaders expressed condolence and outrage to the Coptic Church and the Egyptian people. The Roman Catholic Pope Francis telephoned the Coptic patriarch, Pope Tawadros II, and two days later, on February 17, Francis celebrated a Vatican Mass, during which he recognized the 21 men as universal Christian martyrs (Gibson 2015). In Egypt, leaders of Al-Azhar and other Muslim clerics spoke harshly against Daesh and condemned the killings (Al Jazeera 2015). Pope Tawadros named the 21 men Shuhada Libya, “martyrs of Libya,” on February 21, and added them to the Synaxarion for 8 Amshir, corresponding to Gregorian February 15. Tawadros also ordered funds to be given to the martyrs’ families, to renovate their homes for reliquary shrines. The official Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 2 Tamara L. Siuda: 21 Martyrs of Libya, The 15 February 2026 Coptic Orthodox magazine Al-Kiraza published a response to the video, called “A Message Signed with Blood from the Nation of the Cross,” in which it invited the murderers to recognize the power of the blood of Christ and the witness of the 21 Martyrs and to repent (Youssef 2015: 15). World leaders sent their condolences and support to Pope Tawadros as well as to the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
El-Sisi ordered retaliatory airstrikes against Daesh in Libya, and declared a seven-day period of national mourning and a monthly pension for life for each of the martyrs’ families (Heo 2018: 250). He decreed that a church would be built in honor of the 21 Martyrs—a significant gesture, given that new church construction in Egypt is restricted and frequently prohibited as a rule—and that the Egyptian government would finance and build this church in Al-‘Our village.
The Church of the Martyrs of the Faith and Homeland (Shuhada’ al-Iman wa-l-Watan) was constructed by the Egyptian Ministry of Defense at an estimated cost of ten million Egyptian pounds (Lahham 2018). It was completed just before its opening dedication on February 15, 2018, the third anniversary of the martyrdom, in a new location outside Al-‘Our, after an attack by Islamist militants in May 2015 forced a change from the original site. While the church as well as the local homes of all the martyrs, except for St. Matthew Ayariga, housed precious personal relics, the martyrs’ bodies were presumed to have been lost in the sea off Libya.
The 21 Martyrs Return to Egypt In October 2017, a mass grave containing the bodies of 21 men was located on a beach near Sirte (Agenzia Fides 2017). The bodies, all of which had been decapitated, were dressed in orange jumpsuits (Mosebach 2020: 56–57). After dna testing in a forensic lab in Italy confirmed their identities, the bodies of the 20 Copts were returned to Egypt on May 15, 2018, and were enshrined in the Al-‘Our church, along with other items recovered from the mass grave. As their orange jumpsuits were bloodstained and had deteriorated over years of burial, new replicas were placed in each martyr’s reliquary, along with the remains of the actual jumpsuit each wore in death. St. Matthew Ayariga’s body initially remained in Libya, but no one came to claim him. After a heartfelt invitation from the families of the martyred Copts, which was endorsed by the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Egyptian government, and Libyan Christian leaders, the Libyan government sent St. Matthew to Egypt to be reunited with his martyred brothers in Al-‘Our, and he arrived at the end of September 2020. Of this twenty-first martyr, who is also called St. Matthew the African, the local archdiocese explains: “All we know of him is that he is a child of heaven in Libya with our honored martyrs, and that our hearts are tied to him, and that he rose to be one among us” (Diocese of Samalut 2015: 20).
In the Al-‘Our church’s reliquary, the 21 Martyrs rest in two rows of ten coffins placed side by side, with St. Matthew in the center and at their head, just as he had been placed in the group’s center on the beach in front of the Daesh leader (Figure 2). The martyrs rest with their relics in individual glass cases. Each ruined jumpsuit is stretched over a new one, reinforcing the significance of the jumpsuit to their iconography just as it appeared in such a striking way in the video. Their shoes, undergarments, and other personal items including passports, currency, and photos, are displayed in smaller boxes inside each case, and a portrait of each saint with their name below and a crown of martyrdom above appears at the foot of the simple wooden coffins in which they returned to Egypt.
Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 3 Tamara L. Siuda: 21 Martyrs of Libya, The 15 February 2026 Figure 2: Images from each side of the 21 Martyrs reliquary in the Church of the Martyrs. Photos courtesy Dr. Nabil N. Soliman.
The 21 Martyrs do not appear inside the Al-‘Our church only with their relics. In an exception to traditional imagery for saints in Orthodox church settings, the martyrs also appear in a striking life-size bronze monument outside the church, where the men kneel, as in the video. But here, they are depicted with halos, kneeling not in front of executioners but in front of Jesus, the Lord they called out to as they died. Throughout the church are numerous paintings and icons, showing the 21 Martyrs wearing orange jumpsuits or the traditional white robes of Coptic martyrs. Their faces, rendered in both traditional style and photorealistic imagery, shine from the church’s stained-glass windows and the curtains in the iconostasis.
Commemoration of the 21 Martyrs of Libya continues to grow. Many Christians were moved by the brutality of their deaths and commended the men’s strong faith as they faced such a terrible end. While Daesh got their wish that the video would not be ignored, their other intentions failed. The video has been transformed from a message of terror into inspiring testimony, as its searing aesthetic of brightly dressed Christians killed by anonymous men in black inverted terroristic plans and permitted Daesh’s opponents to unite in the face of that terror. According to His Eminence Anba Paphnutius, Metropolitan of Samalut:
Had the killers had any idea of the significance this video would have for the Coptic Church, they probably would not have made it. Far from being intimidating, it gives us courage. It shows us the martyrs’ heroic bravery, and the fact that they spent their last moments alive in prayer proves the strength of their faith. (Bishop Anba Paphnutius (now Metropolitan Paphnutius), quoted in Mosebach 2020: 47) Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 4 Tamara L. Siuda: 21 Martyrs of Libya, The 15 February 2026 The holy day of their martyrdom also served as the template for a permanent change in the Coptic Orthodox liturgical calendar. On June 3, 2017, the Holy Synod of the Coptic Church, led by Pope Tawadros, declared February 15 (8 Amshir in the coptic calendar) to be a special commemorative Feast of the Martyrs in honor of all contemporary Coptic martyrs, including the 21 Martyrs of Libya. This new feast is distinct from an older Coptic feast of the martyr, which was celebrated in medieval times in Egypt on 8 Bashans.
Figure 3: Roman Catholic Pope Francis kisses a plastic zip tie binding, one of the relics of the 21 Martyrs of Libya presented at the Vatican by the Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros on May 11, 2023. Photo courtesy Vatican Media, featured in Wooden 2023.
An “Ecumenism of Blood” Brings Distant Churches Closer On May 11, 2023, the Coptic Pope Tawadros visited Vatican City for a personal meeting with the Catholic Pope Francis. This meeting was historic in many ways, and included an event inspired by the 21 Martyrs that surprised many. Tawadros gifted Francis a box containing some of the martyrs’ relics (Wooden 2023), including fragments of an orange jumpsuit, as well as at least one of the bloodied zip tie bindings, which Francis lifted from the box and kissed reverently as the Coptic delegation looked on (Figure 3).
Pope Tawadros also gave Pope Francis a separate reliquary housing portions of the martyrs’ physical relics. The Catholic Pope was visibly moved by these gifts, and as he had maintained since their martyrdom, he once again expressed his conviction that an “ecumenism of blood” connects the two churches. This phrase has become part of the dialogue between the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, which has continued since 2023. Fr. Hyacinthe Destivelle, of the Oriental Section of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity at the Vatican, explains the continuing importance of such ecumenism.
Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 5 Tamara L. Siuda: 21 Martyrs of Libya, The 15 February 2026 We need this ecumenism of saints and martyrs because saints are already in unity, they are already in communion. While we are still divided, they show us the way towards unity through their example, their prayers, and the blood they have shed as witnesses. (Fr. Hyacinthe Destivelle, quoted in Stein 2024) At his meeting with Pope Tawadros, Pope Francis also made an unexpected announcement that the 21 Martyrs of Libya would be added immediately to the Roman Martyrology, the Vatican equivalent of the Coptic Synaxarion. This proclamation of Catholic recognition for the 21 Martyrs not only represented an extraordinary exception to Vatican doctrine around how non-Catholics can be recognized as Catholic martyrs, but it suspended that church’s lengthy formal procedure for recognizing martyrs in doing so.
Justice and Miracles Earthly justice for the martyrs’ deaths eventually came. On May 30, 2023, Libyan courts sentenced 23 Daesh members to death, and an additional 23 members to prison, for the killings of the 21 Martyrs and others. At the trials and in informal communications, the terrorists revealed previously unknown details around the killings of the 21 Martyrs, including seeing angels and equestrian saints appearing in the sky or among the waves at the beach, as well as unexplained visions or sounds coming from the cells where the 21 were imprisoned, which frightened their captors (Mosebach 2020: 193–194). Such reports resemble numerous other Coptic martyrological narratives of supernatural events around martyrdoms, but here, they were being reported by the executioners and not the faithful. In addition, one of the convicted terrorists was said to have converted to Christianity in repentance (Mosebach 2020: 128, 193). Post-martyrdom conversion is a common occurrence in dozens of Coptic martyrologies, which frequently describe people converting after having witnessed a martyr’s faithfulness, sometimes in large numbers. Both the 21 Martyrs and their relics are attributed with the performance of miracles. Within his reliquary, the remains of St. Milad Makin Zaky’s jumpsuit spontaneously manifested the shapes of a Coptic cross and the face of Christ in their deteriorating orange folds.
Several martyrs’ families have reported healing and pregnancy miracles, gained by touching the martyrs’ relics (e.g., at least two successful pregnancies have been credited to a shirt worn by St. Issam Baddar Samir: see Mosebach 2020: 90). Others share stories of dreams or messages from the martyrs that bring comfort or strengthen faith. More tangible events have also been reported. Several of the 21 Martyrs are said to have saved young children from accidents or illnesses, or to appear to family members for messages and healing (see Mosebach 2020: Chapter 9). A photograph of St. Mina Fayez Aziz began manifesting drops of holy oil on the first anniversary of his martyrdom (February 15, 2016) and did so a second time on the same day one year later (Mosebach 2020: 108). The witness of the 21 Martyrs of Libya inspires others to commemoration as well as to service. Both Copts and non-Copts from around the world organize pilgrimages to the Martyrs’ Church, and can also meet there with individual martyrs’ families. For example, Coptic Orphans, an international Christian development organization headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, works to improve the lives of children in Egypt. As part of its 21 Fellows program, it sponsors annual youth trips to Al-‘Our. One such trip was filmed and a documentary about the 21 Martyrs and the 21 Fellows program has been widely viewed and shared (Coptic Orphans 2022).
Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 6 Tamara L. Siuda: 21 Martyrs of Libya, The 15 February 2026 Figure 4: The Christian Martyrs of Libya. Neo-Coptic icon (tempera on wood) by Victor A. Fakhoury. February 16, 2015. Coptic Museum of Canada, item number 2016.3.1.
https://www.copticmuseum.ca/victor-fakhoury.
Martyrology in Motion The 21 Martyrs of Libya exist beyond their relics or their church, or even the video of their deaths. Like many other martyrs, their influence has spread from the epicenter of their martyrdom and across the world. icons of the 21 Martyrs proliferate. In the martyrs’ church in Al-‘Our, the 21 appear in traditional as well as photographic icons, such as the oversized posters of their faces, digitally altered to add crowns and clouds, that were used at the church’s opening in lieu of their bodies. Icons of the 21 have been written and shared in Coptic churches around the world and shrines for institutional and personal use. The famous icon writer Victor Fakhoury wrote a Neo-Coptic style icon of the 21 Martyrs in 2016 (Figure 4), which is currently on display at the coptic
museum of canada.
Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 7 Tamara L. Siuda: 21 Martyrs of Libya, The 15 February 2026 Figure 5: The 21 Martyrs of Libya. Neo-Coptic icon by Kirollos Kilada, Fadi Mikhail, and George Makary. Inside the St. Pope Kyrillos VI Chapel, St. Paul American Coptic Orthodox Church, Irvine, California. Photo courtesy Kirollos Kilada.
Another more recent icon of the 21 Martyrs, written in 2021 by students of the iconographer and founder of the Neo-Coptic school isaac fanous, including Kirollos Kilada, Fadi Mikhail, and George Makary (Figure 5), adorns an entire wall of the St. pope kyrillos vi Chapel at St. Paul American Coptic Orthodox Church in Irvine, California (St. Paul American Coptic Orthodox Church, n.d.). The intentional creation of at least two important icons of the 21 Martyrs of Libya in the Neo-Coptic style is itself significant, as the style was born out of an adaptation of traditional iconography to address specific Coptic identity concerns “in light of political, social, and economic concerns in modern-day Egypt” (Saad and Westbrook 2015: 229).
In 2018, Martin Mosebach, a German public intellectual, wrote about taking a pilgrimage to Egypt in order to better appreciate the 21 Martyrs of Libya and their message. His book, which was originally released in Germany as Die 21: Eine Reise ins Land der Koptischen Martyrer, was translated into English and published a second time in 2020 as The 21: A Journey into the Land of Coptic Martyrs by Plough Publishing House, a mass-market Christian publisher. In both versions, this groundbreaking text introduced a wider Christian audience to the 21 Martyrs of Egypt and to Coptic Orthodoxy.
In 2019, a group of American and British Christians touched by the witness of the 21 Martyrs joined with Coptic artists and musicians to create a film about the martyrs. Blessed by Coptic Archbishop Angaelos of London, this project, described as “a short, animated film shaped by Coptic iconography, produced with an international team of 70+ artists and in collaboration with the global Coptic community” (Hart 2024: 3) and named simply The 21, was considered for an Academy Award nomination in 2024. While it failed to reach enough votes for nomination, the thirteen-minute film was publicly released to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the martyrdom on February 15, 2025, and it has received critical acclaim and multiple film festival awards since then. The 21 can be screened for interested audiences and is available online to the public at https://the21film.com/.
Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 8 Tamara L. Siuda: 21 Martyrs of Libya, The 15 February 2026 In addition to his work to help make The 21 film a reality, Archbishop Angaelos has spoken multiple times about his reverence for the 21 Martyrs. In December 2017, he told an audience at the third annual Archon International Conference on Religious Freedom in Washington, D.C. that the witness of these martyrs inspired him to receive a traditional Coptic cross tattoo on his wrist in their honor (Archon 2018: 13).
Typically, the Copts have a cross tattoo on their inner right wrist. Just as a sign of who they are. I grew up in Australia. I didn’t have one, I didn’t see the need. But when I watch this video and the [terrorist spokesman]...pointed that knife and said, “We are after the nation of the cross,” I felt a need to get a cross for them. (Lukasik 2025: 65) In 2023, a Coptic filmmaker, Samuel Armnius, created a documentary film entitled Les 21, la Puissance de la Foi: le village des martyrs (“The 21 and the Power of Faith: The Village of the Martyrs”) for kto Television, a French-language Catholic media channel. This 54-minute film is “based on the testimony of the martyrs’ families and takes place in the Egyptian village where 13 of the 21 martyrs came from” (Stein 2024). On February 14, 2024, Les 21 was screened for the first time at the Vatican Film Library as part of a shared ecumenical celebration of the 21 Martyrs’ feast day hosting both Copts and Roman Catholics in a chapel at St. Peter’s Basilica (Stein 2024), and it premiered online the same day via YouTube (kto tv 2024).
Conclusion The world paid attention when 21 Christians lost their lives on a Libyan beach in 2015. Their killers intended for their execution to convey fear and shame, but as the men became the 21 Martyrs of Libya, their deaths took on a positive context. As they transformed from terror victims into martyrs and heroes of Christian faith, they became part of a sacred language. For Coptic Christians in Egypt and also in the Coptic diaspora, the noble deaths of twenty of their own and a twenty-first man, a stranger who bravely came to their side when offered the opportunity to save his own life, the 21 Martyrs’ story has become part of Coptic martyrology, where “the stories of persecuted saints and martyrs acquire scriptural functions as they continue to be relevant to the twenty-first-century Coptic experience” (Saad and Westbook 2015: 228). Martyrology is directly reflected in Coptic identity as a persecuted people who are part of a church of martyrs, who have suffered through centuries of colonization and subjugation in Egypt.
In a way that has not been seen for any other group of martyred Copts whose deaths have occurred over the last four decades, the 21 Martyrs of Libya are also known, and continue to be known, outside of both Coptic Christian and wider Egyptian contexts. Their martyrology offers strength and solace, and affirms an identity anchor for diasporic Copts across the world. Additionally, it has transcended its Coptic Christian context to become relevant witness for all Christians. The global reception, and acceptance, of the 21 Martyrs of Libya “exceeded a specific Coptic martyrology and became part of a mediatized form of modern Christian witness” (Lukasik 2025: 66), embodied in the globally transmitted video medium of their martyrdom.
The video of the affirmation of faith and subsequent deaths of the 21 Martyrs of Libya constitutes a martyrology itself in every traditional sense, albeit one conveyed via modern technology in streaming high-resolution video: “Converted into saintly iconography, the chilling Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 9 Tamara L. Siuda: 21 Martyrs of Libya, The 15 February 2026 scenes of terrorist violence are now elements of holy repertoire that capture the sacrificial threshold between life and death” (Heo 2018: 238–239).
As a tangible witness of martyrdom, this video is more than the historical record of a terrible event. It serves as concrete example of sanctity. Any association of the bloody events Daesh tried to frame in the video with guilt, shame, or crime has been washed away, just as Christ’s blood washes away sin. The terrorists’ messages of humiliation to Christians, or warnings to the Christian world, have been replaced fully by a show of strength and victory over such messages. Made holy, the video documents a martyrdom, and serves as a relic of that martyrdom. Daesh tried to destroy these men and the faith they died for, but the 21 Martyrs of Libya’s “videotaped instantaneous sainthood”—their martyrology in real time—underscores the terrorists’ failure. The 21 Martyrs of Libya / Shuhada Libya: Short Biographies This list of the 21 Martyrs of Libya is sorted alphabetically by last name. There are multiple ways in which to contemplate this group of martyrs, including by their birthdates between 1968 and 1992, their relationships to each other, and their hometowns (13 from Al-‘Our, five from various towns in Samalut, one each from Matay and El-Helmaya in Egypt, and St. Matthew from Ghana). They can also be contemplated in the order in which their relics rest in their reliquaries. • Gaber Mounir Adly, 22 (born January 25, 1992, in Menbal, Matay).
• Loka (Luka) Nagati Anis, 28 (born in January 1987, in Mashat Manqatin, Samalut).
• Abanub Ayad Atiya (Abanub Ayat Shahata), 23 (born July 2, 1991, in Al-‘Our).
• Matthew Ayariga (“Matthew the African”), age unknown, from Ghana.
• Mina Fayez Aziz, 23 (born October 8, 1991, in Al-‘Our).
• Sameh Salah Farouk, 26 (born May 20, 1988, in Menqarios, Samalut).
• Kiryollos Boushra Fawzy, 23 (born November 11, 1991, in Al-‘Our).
• Malak Farag Ibrahim (“Malak the Elder”), 31 (born January 1, 1984, in Al-Subi, Samalut). • Bishoy Stefanous Kamel, 24 (born September 4, 1990, in Al-‘Our). Brother of Samuel the Younger.
• Samuel Stefanous Kamel (“Samuel the Younger”), 22 (born November 26, 1992, in Al-‘Our). Brother of Bishoy.
• Girgis Samir Megally (“Girgis the Elder”), 23 (born October 1, 1991, in Samsum, Samalut).
• Hany Abd el Messiah Salib, 33 (born January 1, 1982, in Al-‘Our).
• Issam Baddar Samir (Essam Baddar Samir), 24 (born April 15, 1990, in El-Helmeya).
• Girgis Milad Seniut (“Girgis the Younger”), 24 (born December 7, 1992, in Al-‘Our). Brother of Malak the Younger.
• Malak Ibrahim Seniut (“Malak the Younger”), 28 (born September 9, 1986, in Al-‘Our). Brother of Girgis the Younger.
• Magued Seliman Shehata, 41 (born August 24, 1973, in Al-‘Our).
• Tawadros Youssef Tawadros, 46 (born September 16, 1968, in Al-‘Our).
• Samuel Alham Wilson (“Samuel the Elder”), 28 (born July 14, 1986, in Al-‘Our).
• Youssef Shoukry Younan, 24 (born June 2, 1990, in Al-‘Our).
• Ezzat Boushra Youssef (Ezzat Boshra Naseef), 32 (born August 14, 1982, in Dafash, Samalut).
• Milad Makin Zaky, 26 (born October 1, 1988, in Al-‘Our).
Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 10 Tamara L. Siuda: 21 Martyrs of Libya, The 15 February 2026