Iraqi Christians mourning 52 Victims

2/11/2010

By:
Khalil Murshadi, Agence France-Presse,
with files from The Daily Telegraph

BAGHDAD – Grieving Christians in Baghdad marked All Saints Day in mourning yesterday for 52 people killed during a hostage drama with al-Qaeda gunmen that ended in an assault by Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops.

Mourners carried coffins out of the Syriac Catholic church of Our Lady of Salvation and loaded them onto vehicles for transfer to the mortuary. Most of the victims will be buried today.

The rescue drama on Sunday night, two months after U.S. forces formally concluded combat operations in Iraq, ended with two priests among at least 46 slain worshippers.

Witnesses said the attackers, who were armed with automatic rifles and suicide belts, sheltered behind a group of children as they stormed the prayer hall.

“It was carnage,” said Monsignor Pius Kasha. “There were fewer than 80 people inside the church, and only 10 to 12 escaped unhurt.”

An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said seven members of the security forces also died and eight attackers were killed. The ninth detonated a suicide vest.

“What happened was more than a catastrophic and tragic event,” Wijdan Michael, the Iraqi Human Rights Minister who is a Christian, said during a visit to the church.

“In my opinion, it is an attempt to force Iraqi Christians to leave Iraq and to empty Iraq of Christians.”

The Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaeda affiliated group that claimed responsibility for the attack, said in a statement an “angry group of mujahedeen from among the supporters of Allah raided one of the filthy dens of idolatry that was always used by the Christians of Iraq as a headquarters to fight the religion of Islam and to support those who fight that religion.”

It also linked its action to what it alleges is the detention in Egypt of two Coptic women who have converted to Islam.

Islamist protesters in Egypt have accused the Coptic Orthodox Church of imprisoning Camilia Shehata and Wafa Constantine in monasteries.

Egypt condemned the threat to its Christian community, which makes up about 10% of the country’s 78 million people, and beefed up security around churches.

Condemnations poured in from around the world.

“I pray for the victims of this absurd violence, all the more ferocious in that it struck defenceless people united in the house of God, which is a place of love and reconciliation,” Pope Benedict XVI told pilgrims in an All Saints’ Day address in St. Peter’s Square.

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