Iraq / Violence against Christians

Christians Targeted in Mosul Blasts
Agency reports on AlJazeera.net, May 2, 2010
Photo: Reuters
"A shopkeeper has been killed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, as two bombs went off near buses carrying Christian students. More than 100 people, including students and other civilians, were injured in the blasts on Sunday morning. Abdul-Rahim al-Shammari, the head of the provincial council's security committee, said a roadside bomb exploded first, followed by a car bomb moments later. The buses were transporting university students from the mainly Christian town of Hamdaniya, 40km east of Mosul. '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,' Nissan Karoumi, the mayor of Hamdaniya, said. Dr. Muhsin Shamzi, who works at a hospital in Irbil, said at least 17 critically injured patients were taken to the hospital. About 750,000 of Iraq's 30 million population are Christians. The US-based National Council of Churches last week sent a letter to Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, calling on her to urge Iraqi officials to do more to protect Iraq's Christian community. The organisation said they were particularly worried now as Iraq struggles to seat a government after the March 7 parliamentary elections. [...]"