Unknown assailants killed 2 policemen, Mohamed Abu Zeid, 35, and Eid Faheem Sadek, 59, while on duty securing a church in Minya, south of Cairo, Tuesday morning, according to a representative from the Minya Directorate media office.
An investigation has been launched and the perpetrators are being searched for, he added.
The incident comes a day before the Coptic Christmas on 7January.
The interior ministry has announced that it has undertaken security measures; intensifying security presence in the surroundings of churches during Christmas celebrations, which will begin on the night of 6 January.
In the past years, Egyptian churches have come under attack on numerous occasions, including the bombing of a church in Alexandria on New Year’s Eve in 2011 and the torching of a church in Cairo in August 2013, in the violence following the dispersal of the Rabaa Al-Adaweya sit-in.
In a separate incident, a policeman was injured by an explosive device in Beheira, according to state-run news agency MENA.
Since the ousting of Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, policemen and military personnel have been targeted by militants in governorates across Egypt.
Rural Upper Egypt has witnessed a number of these attacks; however the frequency of attacks in the restive Sinai Peninsula greatly outnumbers that of other governorates
