Bahaa Gamal Mikhail Silvanus (23), a conscript in the Egyptian Army and the only Christian in his unit stationed in Suez, was found dead on 24 June in a chair in the office of the military base where he was stationed, with two bullet wounds in his chest and a gun at his feet.
The army says Silvanus killed himself. His family, friends and church pastors don’t believe it, because, first of all, Bahaa Silvanus was a happy man with a strong faith, a university degree in music and plans to enter the monastic life. Secondly, someone who kills himself with a gun never shoots more than once.
Keeping quiet
The army – and Egyptian media – have said little publicly about his death. Meanwhile, hundreds of people attended his funeral on 25 June in his hometown of Rezkit Deir Al-Muharraq, in the Assiut Governorate in Upper Egypt.
Before reporting for his year of obligatory military service in early 2015, Bahaa had been a frequent singer at church, and took care of the musical instruments for the three Coptic churches in his town, said the Revd Shenouda Samir, senior priest of Archangel Mikhial Coptic Orthodox Church in Rezkit Deir Al-Muharraq.
‘A person who commits suicide is a disappointed and desperate person, but Bahaa was in very good spirits’, said Mr Samir. ‘He was smiling always. He was keeping the Word of God.’
Relationship with God
His father (who was working in Kuwait at the time of his son’s death) said that his son had told him he planned to finish his military obligation, work for five years to help support the family and then join a monastery. ‘That was his desire since childhood’, Gamal Silvanus said. ‘So, how can a person who has a good relationship with God be thinking about suicide?’
As relatives looked upon Bahaa’s body, they noticed wounds at the top of his forehead, as if he had been struck by a hard object. An autopsy report is expected within a month.
No evidence has yet emerged that demonstrates conclusively that Bahaa was killed simply because he was a Christian. But a friend in Rezkit Deir Al-Muharraq said that Bahaa had confided that he was regularly pressured by other soldiers in his unit. The friend said that, a month earlier, ‘he told me that the persecution by the fanatical Muslim conscripts in the battalion against him had increased [in] the last days, and they threatened that they would kill him if he wouldn’t convert to Islam’.
Mr Samir said that Bahha, during a visit home, had described to him the hassle other soldiers were giving him because of his religion. Then, on 14 June, Mr Samir said, he and two other priests in Rezkit Deir Al-Muharraq received a text message from Bahaa ‘asking us to earnestly pray for him’. A little more than a week later, on 22 June, he called his mother on his cellphone, and asked for her prayers, too. The family is demanding a government investigation into his death.
