Only one Baghdad church is celebrating Christmas fully this year
Iraq’s Christians fear a recurrence of the recent murders of their fellow parishioners and are forced to mark the occasion in the absence of more than 1,000 families who have fled. Five Islamist extremists burst into the church of Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad in October, murdering two priests, holding the congregation hostage and eventually killing more than 50 people.
Now Amnesty International has warned of a spike in violence in the run-up to Christmas and has urged the Iraqi government to do more to protect Christians, who are now believed to number less than 500,000, about half the level of seven years ago.
“Attacks on Christians and their churches by armed groups have intensified in past weeks and have clearly included war crimes” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Only 40 people turned up for Mass at Our Lady last Sunday. They sang and chanted, a forlorn gathering of survivors, the walls around them spattered with blood and cratered by bullet holes. The bloodied hand prints of those who failed to escape marked the door in an ante-room.
In front of the altar were photographs of the dead, including a light-haired, smiling four year-old boy, Adam Eashoue, and his 33 year-old father, Uday. Adam’s grandparents, Zuher and Amal, cannot bear to return to the church.