The 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya

On 15 February 2015, the terrorist group ISIS published a video showing the beheading of 21 Christians held captive in Sirte, Libya — twenty of them Egyptian Copts and one from Ghana. Pope Tawadros II gave them the title 'Martyrs of the Faith' and canonized them as saints just one week after the incident, on 21 February 2015.

The martyrs were ordinary Egyptian construction workers laboring in Libya to support their families. They were abducted from Sirte in two batches — the first on 27 December 2014 and the second in January 2015 — by militants affiliated with ISIS who had declared allegiance to the group in eastern Libya. Their abduction came amid a wave of systematic targeting of Egyptian Coptic laborers in the region.

The victims appeared in the video, released by the group's media wing under the title 'A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross,' wearing orange jumpsuits and being led along a beach before being executed by beheading. The video documented several of them reciting the name 'Lord Jesus' in their final moments. The group justified the crime by claiming it was revenge for the case of Camilia Shehata. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi declared a seven-day national mourning period, and Egypt carried out airstrikes on ISIS positions in Libya the very next day.