Cairo  - A large crowd of angry Coptic Christians gathered in front of a church Wednesday in the Egyptian town of Bagur, following the murder of a Christian shopkeeper and the stabbings of two others, police said.

The attacks took place in and around the Nile Delta town of Bagur, police told the German Press Agency dpa. Bagur is in Manufiya province, north-west of Cairo.

"There is anger among the Christians because they feel their blood has been made cheap," Archbishop Stefanos, head of the Mar Girgis (St George) Coptic Church in al-Bagur, told dpa.

He said that a man repeatedly stabbed local shopkeeper George Abdu, 63, in the abdomen and the neck, killing him, then fled on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

The archbishop said that the killer drove 4 kilometres to the village of Bamahai and repeatedly stabbed a cobbler, who suffered wounds to the head and lung.

The suspect then drove to another nearby village, Mit Afifi, and stabbed a third Christian man, Hani Barsum, in the neck. Barsum and the cobbler were hospitalized, Stefanos said.

The archbishop said Abdu's funeral would take place Thursday at the church in Bagur.

According to government figures, Christians make up approximately 10 per cent of Egypt's population, though many Christians say they believe the real figure is higher.

Clashes between Christian and Muslim Egyptians are rare, but tensions sometimes erupt in disputes over women or land, particularly for religious buildings.

Wednesday's attacks resembled a string of attacks in April 2006 in Alexandria that led to bloody street clashes between Muslims and Christians in the Mediterranean city.

In that incident, according to police accounts, a sole, "mentally deranged," Muslim man stabbed three parishioners in a church, then attacked worshippers at two other churches. One 78-year-old man died from his wounds.

Two days of street clashes between Muslims and Christians erupted at his funeral, leaving one Muslim man dead, 40 Egyptians of both faiths wounded and dozens more arrested. (dpa)