“As we express our solidarity with the people of Iraq, and convey our condolences to the families of the victims, we are very concerned about the new escalation of violence against Christians in Mosul,” said Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, on May 12.
“We urge all parties and members of the Iraqi administration to take up their responsibility in bringing security and stability to the country, and insuring the safety of Iraqi citizens,” he added.
Thousands of Christians protested in northern Iraq on May 3 about the previous day’s bomb attacks on the buses, which were carrying students and workers. It is believed the explosions wounded around 200 people.
A banner at the demonstration read, “We are not a minority, we are an authentic part of the Iraqi people,” the Agence France-Presse news agency reported. “We ask the prime minister (Nuri al-Maliki) to stop the tragedy of the Christians.”
The students on the buses came from the mainly Christian town of Hamdaniya, 40 kilometers east of Mosul.
The Web site aljazeera.net, quotes Nissan Karoumi, the mayor of Hamdaniya, as saying “All of them were Christian students. They go in buses like that to Mosul’s university after the troubled times, when Christians were targeted in the past.” Karoumi noted that at least 17 people were critically injured in the recent attacks.
The U.S. National Council of Churches had a week earlier sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling on her to urge Iraqi officials to do more to protect Iraq’s Christian community.
Recent violence in Iraq had led Iraqi church leaders to issue a statement calling on, “all government officials and political parties, in order to give priority to the public interest and the security of citizens.”
The statement, released on May 6 by the Council of the Christian Church Leaders of Iraq, followed an emergency meeting of the council in Qaraqosh to respond to the May 2 bus attacks.
Since then, news agencies have reported that more attacks have taken place throughout Iraq, although not all were against Christians. Attacks during the past few days have killed more than 100 people and injured hundreds of others.
The Iraqi church leaders closed their statement by saying, “We pray to God to give comfort to the martyrs, and a quick recovery to the wounded, to protect our country from all harm, and to restore to us the gift of peace and stability.”
The Iraq church council was formed in February and includes all patriarchs, archbishops, bishops and heads of churches in Iraq from the 14 Christian communities registered there since 1982. The churches belong to the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Protestant traditions.
An estimated 800 000 Christians once lived in Iraq, and made up about 3 percent of the country’s population. That figure is believed to have dropped dramatically since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. More than 2 million refugees are believed to have left Iraq in recent years.
In April, London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that the campaign of violence directed against Iraqi Christians was the most under-reported story from Iraq since 2003.
