Monday, August 7 2006 18:33 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Baghdad: It seems the name Al Omar used by Sunni families will disappear following fears that its holders will be targeted by the armed groups in the suburbs of Baghdad that is witnessing a very difficult security condition.

The family of Abo Mostafa, whose last name is Al Omar and who lives in Baghdad, will change his name to another used by both Sunnis and Shias in order to avert a wave of identity-based violence targeting Iraqis in the suburbs of Baghdad.

"It was not an easy decision but we had to have faith that this procedure is the wise thing to do in order to protect the members of the family from this wave of sectarian violence," said Mostafa, 66.

One of his sons changed his name from Omar to Ammar and the other from Bakr to Mostafa.

In Baghdad's district of Al Doura, a woman called Om Omar, has been urging her husband to change his youngest son's name from Omar to another name that does not catch the attention of either Sunnis or Shias. But her husband has not yet taken any steps to do so.

"I fear for my son amid this wave of violence," she said. Iraqi newspapers have published reports recently about its citizens submitting requests to citizenship authorities asking for their names to be changed from Omar to Mohammed or Ammar or Bashar. But the bureaucratic work takes time.

Personal status law in Iraq requires those who want to change their names to publish their demands in the daily newspaper and wait 10 days. If no one objects to the demand, then it is approved by the authorities.

In other cases, people prefer to pursue illegal means by obtaining a fake identity card for 30,000 Iraqi dinars, which they could use in checkpoints and when moving from one city to another.

Fear among Iraqis has grown especially since the start of this year when the wave of violence has reached its peak in Baghdad. The morgue has received more than 10,000 bodies by July 2006, most of them unidentified.

The Iraqi ministry of immigration announced that more than 30,000 Shia Iraqi families living in majority Sunni areas have left their homes under threats by armed groups.