By Global Post
After 10 years of attacks on Iraqi Christians, Monsignor Pios Cacha wonders if the ancient community's days are numbered.
"Maybe we will follow in the steps of our Jewish brothers," he says.
The priest's reference to Iraq's
Jewish population -- once a thriving community numbering in the tens of
thousands but now practically non-existent -- neatly sums up the
possible fate of Iraq's Christians.
The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq ended Saddam Hussein's disastrous
rule, but also turned the country into a battleground between insurgents
and foreign troops, unleashing a wave of bombings and killings by
militants in which Christians were not only caught in the crossfire, but
targeted themselves.
The bloodiest single attack on the community happened on October 31,
2010, when Islamist militants killed 44 worshippers and two priests in
Baghdad's Our Lady of Salvation church.
Cacha compiled a book documenting the attack and its aftermath.
Some pictures in the book were taken soon after the assault, when
bodies including those of young children still lay in pools of blood on
the church's dusty, rubble-strewn floor. Others show later scenes
including memorials for the dead, and the wounded in hospital.
The attack "was a catastrophe for the Christians, and it broke the
back of our presence in this country," says Cacha. "It is the
catastrophe that led to emptying the country of Christians."
The UN refugee agency said thousands fled after the October 31 attack, which was claimed by Al-Qaeda.
Estimates of the number of Christians living in Iraq before 2003 vary
from more than one million to around 1.5 million. But repeated attacks
by Islamist groups pushed many to leave, and now they are estimated at
less than 500,000.
-- Churches remain targets ---
Between 2003 and May 2012, some 900 Christians were killed, while 200
were kidnapped, tortured and ultimately released for exorbitant
ransoms, according to the Iraq-based Hammurabi Organisation for Human Rights (HOHR).
Around 325,000 Christians have left their homes for other areas of Iraq, according to the organisation.
"There were 300 churches in Iraq, and now there are only 57 left.
Even those that remain are targets," according to Louis Sako,
newly-elected Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, the largest
Christian church in Iraq.
Figures at the local level are similarly bleak.
Cacha said of the 1,300 families that once frequented his church,
there are now only 400-500, while a Chaldean priest put the figure for
Christian families in the southern port city of Basra at 450, less than
half the 1,150 families in 2003.
All that despite being Christians, being among the ethnic and
religious minorities represented in the Iraqi parliament -- Christians
have one cabinet minister, five MPs, and hold provincial council seats
in Baghdad, Nineveh in the north and Basra in the south.
Apart from those cities, the community is concentrated in the Kirkuk, Dohuk and Arbil.
The vast majority are part of Sako's Chaldean Church, an Eastern Rite Church recognized by Rome which uses Aramaic, the ancient language that Jesus Christ would have spoken.
The situation in the wider Middle East region is also causing concern for Christians and other minorities as
Islamists take an increasingly tighter grip on power following the Arab
Spring.
"The coming years will be very difficult for Christian groups in the
Middle East and the Arab world. There will be challenges for how to
secure them and protect their rights, privacy of religion and
traditions," said Saad Sirop Hanna of Mar Yusuf Church in central
Baghdad.
"I don't know how mature the political leaders and politicians of the
Arab Spring are to understand this challenge," he said, also expressing
fears that Christians could get caught up in a conflict between Sunni
and Shiite Muslims.
The future of Iraq's Christian community ultimately hinges on whether the current lack of security and jobs can be resolved.
"Many Christian youth want to emigrate, and when I ask them why, they
say, 'Give us jobs to live and safety to stay,' and that is something I
cannot answer," said former migration minister Pascal Wardeh, who now
heads the HOHR.
If the violence and instability continues, it risks driving the
once-thriving Christian population, like Iraq's Jews, out of the country
and into the history books.