The Assyrian Democratic Organization
Rome- AS — Two Christians have been killed and eight others kidnapped around the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the site of other Christian murders earlier this month, the Catholic news agency Asianews reported on Wednesday.
The latest killings took place on Tuesday in the same neighbourhood where a Chaldean Catholic priest and three deacons were shot on June 3, the religious news agency said.
Then early on Wednesday five Christian teachers and three students were abducted while riding on a bus from Mosul to their home village. The bus was stopped by a number of vehicles and the hostage takers read out a list with the names of the people they wanted to get off the bus. Asianews reported that police did not intervene in the abduction.
The Chaldean Catholic church is an autonomous Eastern rite church with an estimated 600 000 to 700 000 followers which maintains full communion with the Vatican.
Deterioration of religious freedom
Last month, the leaders of Iraq’s Christian minority called on the mainly Muslim country’s beleaguered government to protect their community from attacks by al-Qaeda-inspired extremists.
The US commission on international religious freedom ((USCIRDF) recently raised alarm about the deterioration of religious freedoms in Iraq and the rising violence against the faithful.
US President George W Bush and Pope Benedict XVI also discussed the situation of the Christian minority in Iraq during talks earlier this month. Bush said he assured the pontiff that the US was working to make sure that Baghdad lived up to its constitution calling for religious tolerance.
