160 people and injured over 250 in a Baghdad neighborhood.
Iraq’s Interior Ministry and witnesses said the explosions happened in 15-minute intervals in the Shiite-controlled district of Sadr City, with the force of these blasts destroying entire streets.
It was one of the worst bomb attacks in the capital in recent memory this month and fierce fires continued to burn after the blasts.
Earlier in the day, gunmen mounted a bold raid on another Shiite target: the Shiite run Health Ministry. The blast added to anxiety among Iraqi Christians who aid workers say have "shocking" attacks and kidnappings carried out mainly by Islamic insurgents.
CHRISTIANS KILLED
Last month, on October 4 a bomb exploded in the mainly Christian district of Camp Sara in Baghdad, killing nine Christians.
The attack was similar to two consecutive car-bombs, small and large, detonated outside a church in Baghdad on Sunday September 24, Christian rights investigators said.
UK-backed Barnabas Fund, a group working with Christians in Iraq, told BosNewsLife Thursday it has learned that bomb blasts are not the only threats faced by Christians. It said it just received a "shocking report" that a toddler of an apparently Christian mother was murdered and disfigured after being kidnapped in Baghdad in October 2006.
"The mother could not afford to pay the ransom, and so the kidnappers killed the child. They returned the body to the mother. The little child had been beheaded, roasted and was served on a mound of rice," said well-informed Barnabas Fund, without mentioning names apparently because of security concerns.
BEHEADED BOY
In another incident a 14-year-old Christian boy was held down by his limbs and beheaded. His Muslim attackers called him a "dirty Christian sinner" and chanted “Allahu akbar” or "Allah is great," Barnabas Fund and other sources told BosNewsLife.
Church leaders have been killed as well, including Paulos Iskander, an Iraqi church minister, who was abducted in Mosul on October 10.
"His family attempted to meet the kidnappers’ demands – a $40,000 ransom, and a public repudiation by Iskander’s church of the remarks about Islam quoted by Pope Benedict XVI in September," Barnabas Fund recalled.
They reportedly began arranging several loans and 30 large posters were reportedly placed on churches in the city, distancing Christians from the Pope’s words. However, Iskander’s decapitated body was discovered two days later, apparently dumped in an outlying suburb of Mosul.
TORTURE SIGNS
"His hands and legs had been severed, and his body showed signs of severe torture."
This week another church leader, Doglas Yousef Al Bazy, 34, went missing and Iraqi Christians fear he has also been kidnapped "and may suffer as Paulos did," Barnabas Fund added.
"The church community are anxiously waiting and praying for news and for his safe return." Christian girls have also "increasingly" become the target in a spate of kidnappings.
"The girls are taken at gunpoint and frequently raped and abused [and] only released if their families pay large ransoms," said Barnabas Fund.
"The shame of their ordeal, which is felt far more in Middle Eastern culture than in the West, can make the victims suicidal," the group added.
GIRL’S SUICIDE
"One girl begged her parents not to pay the ransom, too ashamed that she had been gang raped by her kidnappers to want to go home. The family did pay and she was returned to them, but the following morning she was found dead from an overdose of sleeping pills," it said.
In addition Christian entrepreneurs such as bakers in Baghdad have reportedly been attacked because the diamond-shaped loaves of bread they produced vaguely resembled crosses.
BosNewsLife also established in Baghdad that Christian-owned liquor stores have been attacked and several shop owners were killed by Islamic militants.
"The dwindling number of Christians in Iraq, many of whom are too fearful to leave their homes, are in desperate need," said Barnabas Fund.
FOOD PARCELS
"We are currently supporting approximately 1,445 families with food and other necessities. Food parcels go to the poorest Christian families; distribution is done by local churches to make sure the aid goes to those who need it most," the group told BosNewsLife.
Iraqi Christians are also planting fruit saplings which will help them towards self-sufficiency in the future. They also receive medical attention from mobile clinics funded by Barnabas Fund.
"Iraqi Christians understand these violent attacks as a threat, that Christians are not wanted in Iraq and this is the treatment they can expect if they stay. Many are fleeing to the Kurdish territories in the north, where the Kurds have been generous in accepting them," Barnabas Fund said.
"Others have fled to Syria and Jordan. Living as refugees in relatively safe places they are struggling with lack of resources, unable to provide for themselves and families."
GOVERNMENT DIFFICULTIES
Governing Iraq has become almost impossible with reports that officials and ministries are also increasingly becoming the target of illegal militias and other criminal bands.
Earlier this week, gunmen kidnapped another deputy health minister from his home in northern Baghdad, while Zamili escaped an assassination attempt on Monday.
Last week, some 80 masked gunmen stormed the predominantly Sunni Arab Higher Education Ministry abducting dozens of people. The fate of some those hostages still remains unknown.
Yet, Barnabas Fund suggested that it and Iraqi Christians still believe "in a powerful and compassionate God who can and does rescue His people." (With BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos and reports from Iraq).
