Hundreds of Christians and Muslims are hurling stones at each other in central Cairo hours after mobs set fire to a church in violence that killed 12 people and injured more than 200.

Christians and Muslims fought in the streets of western Cairo in violence triggered by word of a mixed romance, Egypt’s official news agency reported.

The wives of two Egyptian Coptic priests, forbidden by the church from divorcing their abusive husbands, desperately sought another way out by converting to Islam.