Aid to the Church in Need: IRAQ: Too little, too late for Mosul Christians?

IRAQ: Too little, too late for Mosul Christians?

Posted by Press release on 15/10/2008, 7:39 am
Board Administrator

ACN News: Wednesday, 15th October 2008 –

IRAQ: Too little, too late for Mosul Christians?

By John Pontifex

A LEADING Iraqi bishop has warned that measures to tighten security in Mosul may have come too late to save one of the country’s oldest Christian communities beset by a wave of violence and intimidation.
After 15 or more murders in as many days across the northern city of Mosul, the Baghdad government sent in a 2,500-strong police task force to crack down on Islamic militants accused of shooting Christians, bombing their homes and terrorising them with threatening messages.
But by the time Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the measures late last week, a mass exodus of Christians was underway with reports that in just 24 hours 1,000 or more families had fled the city.
Even before the most recent violence began late last month, the Christian population in Mosul had plummeted from 25,000 to 7,000 within barely four years and it is now feared that the current exodus could wipe out their presence from the city where the Church’s roots go back to the 2nd Century AD.
Speaking from Iraq yesterday (Tuesday, 14th October) in an interview with the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, Archbishop Louis Sako denounced the security measures, warning: “It may be too late.”
Referring to a “liquidation” of Mosul’s Christian community, Archbishop Sako said: “We are extremely worried about the situation.
“It is absolutely crucial that the government send more security and police to the area and maybe – just maybe – it will encourage the Christians who have fled Mosul to go back.”
He was speaking just two days after Islamists in Mosul walked into a music shop and shot dead its owner, Iraqi Christian Oarkis Alton, and seriously wounding his cousin, who was with him at the time.
Nearby, Islamic militants stormed three Christian homes in Mosul’s al-Souka district, ordered the occupants to leave and detonated the buildings.
Fear has gripped the city with reports of militants going round the city in vehicles shouting at Christians to ‘leave or face the consequences’. Similar messages have been left on mobile phones and sent in letters addressed to Christian homes.
With reports that business owners have been pressurised into expelling Christian staff from their premises, Archbishop Sako said: “Christians in Mosul are too afraid to go to work and children are too afraid to go to school.”
Speaking on Monday, 13th October to ACN, senior Iraqi priest Father Bashar Warda said the identity of the militants responsible for the persecution still remained hidden.
He added: “The situation is altogether so horrifying. People are being faced with two choices – either leave or risk being killed or having your home destroyed.”

Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 145 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 45 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information, contact please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: www.aidtochurch.org

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Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148 ABN: 62 418 911 594
Ph/Fax (02) 9679-1929 e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org web: www.aidtochurch.org