Mosul: Nearly 1,000 Christian families have fled their homes in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul following the worst wave of violence against them in five years, provincial governor Duraid Kashmula has said.
The Christians had taken shelter over the past 24 hours in schools and churches in the northern and eastern fringes of Nineveh province after attacks that have killed at least 11 Christians since September 28, Kashumula said yesterday.
At least three homes of Christians were blown up by unidentified attackers in the Sukkar district of Mosul, regarded by US and Iraqi security forces of one of the last urban bastions of the Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
"The (violence) is the fiercest campaign against the Christians since 2003," Kashmula said. "Among those killed over the past 11 days were a doctor, an engineer and a handicapped person."
The latest flight came as Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako this week called on the US military as well as the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to protect Christians and other minorities in the face of a rash of deadly attacks.
In a recent interview with AFP, Sako called on the Americans to do more to protect Christians and other minorities. "We are the target of a campaign of liquidation, a campaign of violence. The objective is political," Sako said. He said that since the US-led invasion of 2003, more than 200 Christians had been killed and a string of churches attacked, and added that the violence had intensified in recent weeks, particularly in the north.
It was now time for Prime Minister Maliki's Shiite Muslim-led government to deliver on repeated promises to do more to protect Iraq's minorities, Sako said.
