group to improve security in Iraq, amid growing frustration about sectarian violence, which also impacts Christians.
Their statement following a nearly two-hour long videoconference came as representatives of Iraq’s embattled Christian minority said that Islamic militants have "stopped the Catholic heart" of Iraq.
In a statement to BosNewsLife, the Dutch aid group ‘Kerk in Nood’, or ‘Church in Need’ said several Catholic facilities, including seminar, one convent, five church buildings, and a pope-backed university had been closed in Baghdad’s Dora District, known as ‘The Vatican of Iraq.’
The group said about 700 Christian families have been forced to flee the area by "Sunni [Muslim] militias." Two priests, identified as chaldeese priest Saad Sirup Hanna of Saint Jacob’s Church, and Basil Yaldo, the headmaster of Saint Peter’s Seminary, were allegedly tortured since their detention in August, before being released recently.
"ATROCITIES"
In addition, Church in Need said there have been "atrocities" in hospitals. "In a local hospital in a former [Catholic] parish in Eastern Baghdad, the physical characteristics of killed young men have been surgically mutilated [by militants] to make identification impossible. You see desperate mothers crying and shouting outside hospitals," the group added.
These are no isolated incidents, suggested Barnabas Fund, a human rights group investigating reports of persecution of Christians in especially Muslim nations. It also noted that amid the "surge in hostility towards Christians in recent weeks, Christian girls have increasingly become the target in a spate of kidnappings and rapes."
Barnabas Fund told BosNewsLife that, "The girls are taken at gun point from their families,
from their homes or snatched off streets into waiting cars. They are frequently raped and abused while in captivity, and only released if their families are able to find the large ransoms demanded," the group said.
SUICIDES
It warned that the "shame of their ordeal," is felt far more in Iraq than in the West, which "can make the victims suicidal." Barnabas Fund said it has learned that “in one case a girl killed herself after being abducted and gang raped by nine men. When the abductors allowed her to call her family she asked them not to pay the ransom. The family did pay and she was returned to them, but she was found dead the following morning [after] taking an overdose of sleeping pills."
Barnabas Fund said that in another case five Christian girls were kidnapped in front of policemen as they tried to obtain passports from a travel and citizenship department in Baghdad. "The police did nothing to try to stop the kidnappers." Iraqi Police forces are increasingly seem as either unable or unwilling to do anything to protect Christians, Barnabas Fund claimed. "It is reported that some are even participating in these brutal crimes against Christian women and children."
Human rights groups say the latest developments come after attacks against Christians increased in the last three weeks, apparently in response to a call by militants for increased violence during the Islamic fasting month, Ramadan.
EXPLOSION
On Wednesday October 4 an explosion rocked the mainly Christian district of Camp Sara in Baghdad, killing at least nine Christians, according to investigators. Observers say that the blasts resembled another on a church in Baghdad on September 24.
Several days later, October 10, Paulos Iskander, an Iraqi church minister, was abducted in Mosul. His beheaded body was found two days later. In Baquba, 65 kilometers (40.5 miles) north-east of Baghdad, a Christian doctor was abducted and killed on his way to work in Baquba hospital, Barnabas Fund said.
There have also reports that a 14-year-old Christian boy was crucified in Basra, the group added. Thousands of Christians have fled Iraq. The dwindling Christian population is now estimated to be up to 750,000 people, although several churches and groups say it could be far less.
COMPLICATIONS
Complicating efforts to end sectarian violence that impacts Christians and other minorities were reported cracks in the US-Iraqi relationship earlier this week, after American appeared to press the Iraqi prime minister to accept a timetable of political reforms, aimed at ending his country’s rising sectarian violence.
Prime Minister al-Maliki said no outside power could decide his government’s agenda, and added that he had his own plan for ending the bloodshed.
President Bush said Saturday that Mr. al-Maliki is a sovereign leader, whom the United States is assisting, and not "America’s man in Iraq." (With reports from BosNewsLife Special Correspondent Eric Leijenaar in the Netherlands, reports from Washington and Iraq).
