The deadly Christmas Eve ambush of a Christian bus driver in Iraq Thursday and a bombing earlier this week targeting a 1,200-year-old church are driving Iraq’s few remaining Christians quietly underground in the hours before the holy day begins.
Whilst we wait to go to midnight mass here in the West, news just in from Iraq:-
The deadly Christmas Eve ambush of a Christian bus driver in Iraq Thursday and a bombing earlier this week targeting a 1,200-year-old church are driving Iraq’s few remaining Christians quietly underground in the hours before the holy day begins.
Christmas has bumped into Shiite Islam’s most mournful ceremony this year, forcing Iraqi Christians to shutter their homes and hide the signs of their celebration.
Midnight Mass will again be observed in daylight across Baghdad, and security around churches is heavier for a community that’s been threatened by sectarian violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Unidentified gunmen ambushed a Christian man in Mosul on Thursday, shooting him after pulling him from the bus he was driving, police said. It was not clear if the attack was religiously based but it has put residents of the city on high alert.
That shooting came on the heels of a deadlier attack Wednesday, when a bomb hidden in sacks of flour exploded outside a historic church in Mosul, killing two people and wounding five.
“Instead of performing Christmas Mass in this church, we will be busy removing rubble and debris,” said Hazim Ragheed, a priest at the Mar Toma Church.
And
More attacks on Iraqi Christians reported on Christmas eve
There has been a notable increase in attacks targeting Iraqi Christians, particularly in the northern restive city of Mosul.
Mosul, the capital of Nineveh Province, used to be a main center of Christianity in Iraq prior to the 2003-U.S. invasion.
Christianity came to Mosul and the adjacent Nineveh Plain in the 1st century A.D. and reached its zenith in the 7th century.
There are probably more monasteries and churches in the city and its suburbs than mosques – but unfortunately most are abandoned today.
A bomb placed close to a church went off on Wednesday, killing one Iraqi Christian and damaging part of the church.
Other churches and a monastery were attacked this month, causing material damage but no casualties.
However, several Iraqi Christian have been killed in the city this month, some of them originally living there and others on business trips.
On Thursday, the Christmas eve, one Iraqi Christian youth was killed as he left his home in al-Tahrir district, according to www.ankawa.com, a social and news website specialized mainly in Iraqi Christian affairs.
“Are these the Christmas presents we get?” Said Fr. Faiz Wadia of the Orthodox Christian church that was attacked last week.
“Is this the way they want to congratulate us on Christmas and the New Year?” Fr. Wadia added.
At least five Mosul churches have been targeted in the past few weeks.
Late 2008 at least 40 Christians were killed and more than 12,000 forced to flee the city.
Analysts say if the anti-Christian attacks continue, Mosul will soon lose its Christian identity and standing as a center for tolerance and co-existence in the Middle East.
Tags: Christian Persecution