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Bishop of Kurdistan: "The Church in Iraq
is in great danger"
25.4.2007 |
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The
latest attacks in the North of Iraq (outside
Kurdistan region), until now the safest area in the
country, sound the alarm. Msgr Rabban Al Qas "begs"
the Vatican: “Intervene, Christians are now in
ranger everywhere”. The death toll from a suicide
bombing of Tell-el-skop: 10 dead, among the 140
wounded two Dominican nuns. In Baghdad the ongoing”
massacre” of Christians and Shiites in the Dora
quarter.
April
25, 2007
Erbil, Kurdistan region (Iraq), -- There are
numerous children and Dominican nuns among the
wounded from yesterday’s suicide bombing of the
Christian village of Tell-el-skop, north east of
Mosul. Suicide attacks targeting the North of the
country have sounded the alarm for religious
leaders, who now ask the Holy See for help. “Find a
way, a means to save us, the Church in all of Iraq
is in great danger, we beg the Vatican to help us
bring our voice to the world”. It almost seems like
an ultimatum, these words expressed by Msgr. Rabban
al Qas, Chaldean bishop of Amadiyah and Erbil, the
capital of Kurdistan region, in his reiteration of
the Iraqi Catholic Churches appeal launched
yesterday through AsiaNews l’appello, following the
increasingly ferocious nature of attacks carried out
against Christians in the country.
The bishop speaks from Kurdistan, upon till now an
oasis of calm where Iraq’s Christians could find
refuge. He speaks of the “frightening situation” for
the community in big cities and in the small
villages. Yesterday’s attack on Tell-el-skop, where
a car bomb was exploded closet o the head quarters
of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Kurdish
political party lead by Kurdistan's president
Massoud Balzani, was not the first such attack. The
explosion seriously damaged the nearby Dominican
Convent and primary school and kindergarten which
the sisters run. At least 10 people were killed
among them two children; among the 140 wounded there
are two religious. A sister present at the time of
the blast said the explosion terrorized the little
ones, who up on till now had never witnessed such
violence in their village.
According to local catholic sources the spreading
attacks on the north have confessional origins:
“they want to attack Christians and religious
minorities to prove that there is neither security
plan, nor protection barrier that the USA can build
capable of protecting them”. Political-economic
motivations are neither excluded: “We will target
Kurds along with Christians, whose demands on
Kirkuk’s oil reserves are intolerable to many groups
both in Iraq and abroad” add the sources.
Either ways the areas suffering the most at the
moment remain Baghdad and Mosul. Church sources in
Baghdad confirm that the “massacre” in the Dora
quarter, where armed Sunni groups kill Shiites and
impose conversion or exile on the Christians,
continues unabated. Even Christians hopeful of a
free and peaceful Iraq now speak of “a country
without hope, for at least a further ten years”.
asianews it
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