The Chaldean bishop of Kirkuk makes an appeal:

“In Iraq Christians are dying, the Church is disappearing under continued persecution, threats and violence carried out by extremists who are leaving us no choice: conversion or exile”.  This is the urgent appeal sent to AsiaNews by msgr. Louis Sako, Chaldean Archbishop of Kirkuk, while reports arrive of car bombs and the death of Christians in the Kurdish area, until now untouched by the confessional violence.

The bishop who is president of Iraq’s Council of Catholic Churches’ Committee for inter religious dialogue , signed a declaration regarding the “tragic situation of Baghdadis Christians”, denouncing militant groups which under the threat of armed violence ask Christians to convert immediately to Islam or to consign their property and leave the country.  The same thing happens in Mosul, but with a different “choice”: pay a monetary tribute to the Jihad if they want to avoid their death. 

The Iraqi Christian community, at home and abroad, has long urged the local Church to take a stand against the forced evacuation, rape, kidnap, paying a ransom, blackmail, scarring and killing they suffer and the complete lack of protection from the local government and coalition forces. And in the last two days, as the controversial plan to install a secure zone for Christians in the Niniveh plain begins to take shape, the terrorists have begun targeting the zoned area.  “It’s almost a political gesture – observes msgr Sako – as if to say: “we can hit anywhere, nowhere is safe”.

The confessional based attacks are no longer just restricted to Baghdad and Mosul, but now target small centres in the North.  Yesterday a group of fundamentalists executed 23 yazidi on the road linking Mosul to Ba’ashika, a majority Christian village: they stopped a bus and after having made Arabs and Christians alight they killed the faithful of this ancient religion, based on the strong Good-Evil dualism.  Today a car bomb close to a school in Tell-el-skop, a Christian village, and 9 people died including 2 children; 60 were wounded.  A convent of Dominican nuns, which is nearby, was badly damaged in the blast.