By SAM DAGHER
BARTELLA, Iraq—The plight of Iraqi Christians since the fall of Saddam Hussein has been agonizingly personal for Aram Butrus Matti.
Hanging on the wall in his parents' home here in northern Iraq are photographs of his cousin Yonan, his cousin's spouse and their three-month-old son, who were among some 50 worshippers killed by suicide bombers in a Baghdad church in October 2010.
Ayman Oghanna for The Wall Street Journal.
At least 54 Iraqi churches have been bombed and at least 905 Christians killed in acts of violence since the fall of Saddam Hussein. In the wake of a series of attacks, Iraqi police, pictured, guard St. Barbara Church in the Nineveh Plain in northern Iraq, a region to which Christians are being encouraged to relocate.
There also is a photo of his older brother, Noel, a pharmacist. Six years ago, Aram and Noel were kidnapped together in the nearby city of Mosul. Noel, then 44, was murdered. Aram was released only after his parents paid a ransom.
Shortly thereafter, Mr. Matti, now 27, fled Mosul with the rest of his family to their ancestral village. Bartella is now ringed with trenches, earthen berms and checkpoints manned by local security forces to ward off attacks.
Mr. Matti is eager to leave Iraq for good.
With the Arab Spring now bringing political turbulence to many other countries in the region, Christians throughout the Middle East are worried that what happened in Iraq may be a harbinger of misfortune to come in their own communities. While many remain supporters of the uprisings, others fear that the toppling of their autocratic rulers could uncork sectarian violence against Christians and other minority groups in their own nations.
The sectarian violence that followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq and fall of Hussein in 2003 has been brutal for all Iraqis, including Muslim Shiites and Sunnis. But for the nation's fragile Christian communities, it has been catastrophic.
At least 54 Iraqi churches have been bombed and at least 905 Christians killed in various acts of violence since the U.S. invasion toppled Hussein in 2003, according to Archbishop Louis Sako of the Chaldean Catholic Church in the northern provinces of Kirkuk and Sulimaniya. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians have fled. A report on Iraq released Tuesday by Minority Rights Group International said that about 500,000 Christians remain in Iraq, down from an estimated 800,000 to 1.4 million in 2003.
"It's a hemorrhage," Archbishop Sako says. "Iraq could be emptied of Christians." Read the rest on:
The Wallstreet journal
The Wallstreet journal
No comments:
Post a Comment