A church in the middle of Cairo is bombed. A 70-year-old woman is stripped naked and paraded through a southern Egyptian village.

Military vehicles run over Coptic protesters, dismembering and mangling 27 people in the worst massacre of Christians in the country's history.

Firebrand preachers shout incensed anti-Christian messages from the pulpit and mobs attack Coptic churches, businesses and homes.

This is now a daily routine for Egypt's Coptic Christians, the largest Christian minority in the Middle East.

What Arab Spring?

During the 2011 protests that swept long-time Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak from power, Copts and Muslims stood side by side. Inspiring images showed Christians linking arms to protect Muslims from police during their daily prayers.

"Everyone was inspired by what we saw in Tahrir Square, and the solidarity between the various facets of Egyptian society," says Peter Tadros, spokesperson for the Australian Coptic Movement.

"Muslim, Coptic, Nubian, male, female: you name it, we were all there, hand in hand for one cause."

During the 2011 protests Copts and Muslims stood side by side. ( Getty Images: Chris Hondros )

But in the aftermath of the revolution, life was no better for Egypt's Christians.

According to Mr Tadros, tensions had already been building. Twenty-one people were killed in a bombing outside the Two Saints Church in Alexandria on New Year's Eve in 2011.

When the Muslim Brotherhood and then the military came to power, things got much worse.

"We had a power vacuum," Mr Tadros says.

"The police started to disappear off the streets and then we started to see massacres [and] kidnappings for ransom. It really was a terrible, terrible period for Coptic Christians."

The Australian Refugee Review Tribunal echoed that point in a report on an application for asylum by a Coptic couple in 2014, noting an "increase in beatings, harassment, stealing, extortion and kidnapping of Copts (though also of Muslims) in Upper Egypt".

In the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution, life was no better for Christians. ( ABC RN: Laura Brierley Newton )

"There was no spring," says Jacqueline, a Coptic Christian now living in Sydney who did not want to be identified by her real name.

"We were living a different reality to what was on TV.

"The men went down into the streets to protect the neighbourhood from thugs who were attacking homes. Women were screaming, and you didn't know if it was because someone had broken into their house and attacked them."

Seeking asylum in Australia

It's Sunday, and Rifaat Boutros is picking up some donated furniture to take to a recently arrived family of Coptic asylum seekers.

Mr Boutros has been volunteering with the St Demiana and St Athanasius Church in the Sydney suburb of Punchbowl for more than 10 years, making him the go-to person for many of the 600 Coptic asylum seekers in the Bankstown area.

Reifat Boutros is a Coptic church volunteer who helps asylum seekers get settled in Australia. ( ABC RN: Laura Brierley Newton )

He helps people find work, a place to stay, access to a lawyer or assistance navigating Australian bureaucracy.

He spends his weekends doing what he's doing now: picking up furniture and material donations from the Coptic community.

"I noticed that over the last five years, the number has increased a lot since we started this work," Mr Boutros says.

"Most of them come as students and try to apply for a protection visa when they get here."

It's difficult to know the exact number of Copts who have been accepted under Australia's Special Humanitarian Program, because the Department of Immigration and Border Protection does not report publicly on humanitarian claims based on religion and applicants are not required to declare their religion.

Mr Boutros says he has noticed an increase in Coptic Egyptians trying to move to Australia. ( ABC RN: Laura Brierley Newton )

But ABS figures on humanitarian visa recipients who nominated Coptic Orthodox Christian as their religion on the 2011 Census indicate that the numbers are small.

In the first eight months of 2011, 18 people were accepted as asylum seekers.

Refuge in Sydney

Mr Boutros unloads some household goods from his car for Saeed and his newly arrived family: a vacuum cleaner, some pots and pans, and other kitchen appliances.

Saeed is from the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, where he worked as a social worker.

He arrived in Australia in 2013, and Mr Boutros has been helping him settle into the country and prepare his application for asylum.

Saeed has recently been granted a protection visa, and his family has been able to join him in Sydney.

Saeed doesn't want to talk in detail about why his family fled Egypt, but says he never wanted to leave, but was forced to do so because his family didn't feel safe.

In halting English he tells me that for eight years, he couldn't let his son play outside the house as other children do.

"When people want money, they do everything to kidnap the children. When he was at school, I was very afraid that he could lose his life in one minute."

Harrowing tales

Jacqueline was forced to flee her home in Egypt after the election of Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood government. ( ABC RN: Laura Brierley Newton )

Jacqueline is another who didn't want to leave her home. She was a volunteer with a church charity and loved her work. But things had changed after the election of Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood government.

Jacqueline lived near a Salafist mosque that preached intolerance against Copts. She says Christians would get called infidels, pigs and the children of monkeys. People would spit at her on the street.

"Every time you went into the street, a big problem would happen," she says. "Every time you went out into the street."

"I was surprised one day when I was choosing food, a woman pushed me onto the ground and said: 'Are you all still here? You should all leave the country or be like us. You have to go, this is not your country. You shouldn't be here at all.'"

Bystanders intervened to separate the two women, but the attacker told Jacqueline that next time she'd kill her.

Jacqueline was attacked and her life threatened near her home in Egypt. ( ABC RN: Laura Brierley Newton )

Jacqueline had a brother in Sydney whom she'd planned to visit. He urged her to leave as soon as possible, so she and her daughter fled days after she was attacked. Seven months later, both were given protection visas.

In Sydney, she has found the going tough because of language and cultural barriers. But she is positive about life here, despite the challenges.

"The future is my grandson," she says with a big smile. "He was born here, and he will grow up here.

"I came for my daughter, her future, and so that her children grow up in a country that respects them and can educate them.

"I hope that when he grows up, he understands that we did this so he can live in a good country. He's our hope and the reason why we cope with all the difficulties that come our way."