Christian woman, police officer among dead in Iraq attacks
ICC Note:
Rafah Toma was killed in her home when militants broke in and open fired. Rafah is the latest victim of anti-Christian violence in Iraq, AGI news reports.
By Mohammed Tawfeeq
1/3/2011 Iraq (CNN) – At least three people were killed in three separate attacks in Baghdad and Baquba on Monday morning, Iraqi officials said.
In the first attack, gunmen entered a house in the Karrada district of central Baghdad and fatally shot a Christian woman using pistols equipped with silencers, an official with Iraq’s interior ministry said.
Rafah Butros Toma was sleeping when gunmen stormed the house and killed her in her bed, the official said. The attackers stole money from the house before fleeing the scene.
Butros Toma spoke with CNN in December about the October 31 siege of Baghdad’s Our Lady of Salvation Church that killed 51 congregants and two priests, including her 27-year-old cousin. Three suicide bombers detonated their vests during the siege, but Butros Toma survived.
“I am attached to this place,” Butros Toma said at the church while marking 40 days since the attack — a mourning period commonly observed by some communities in the Middle East. “Every other day I come here. I feel like my soul is in this place with them.”
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