No Cheer for Iraqi Christians

No Cheer for Iraqi Christians

By Sam Dagher

12/31/2009 Iraq (The New York Times) – It was another bad year for Iraq ’s dwindling Christian minority.

Although they were granted more representation in Parliament under the new election law that was finally approved in early December, they continued to be besieged on many fronts, especially in northern Iraq . In December, churches were bombed twice in Mosul , and Christians were still singled out for killings or kidnappings. And as the year drew to a close, new threats loomed, paradoxically this time from another minority group.

The depth of the crisis facing Iraq ’s Christians — and what little anyone, including the American military, can do — was on display here on Christmas Eve.

Their stories were a catalog of grief and loss.

One woman was standing next to her husband when gunmen stormed into a dental clinic and riddled him with bullets in 2004. Another lost two of her brothers within several months in 2005. An elderly woman lost her son in February 2008 when gunmen shot him and two others accompanying Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, who was kidnapped and later found dead. Another woman lost both her husband and son within one week in September 2008 during a wave of attacks against Christians in Mosul that forced thousands to flee.

That year, a wave of attacks against Christians in Mosul left 40 dead and displaced more than 12,000, according to the United Nations. Although many have since returned to Mosul , the attacks against Christians and their churches have continued.

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