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Iraqi Christians pack churches
25/12/2007 16:09 - (SA)
Baghdad - Thousands of Iraqi Christians picked their way through checkpoints and along dusty streets lined with concrete blast walls, packing churches in Baghdad on Tuesday for Christmas Mass.
Death is never far in Iraq - a suicide car bomb in the northern city of Beiji killed at least 22 people and another suicide bomber killed four people at a funeral northeast of Baghdad in mid-morning. But the number of attacks has fallen dramatically in the past few months - the US military says by 60% since June - and the country's small Christian community took advantage of the lower violence to turn out in numbers unthinkable a year ago.
"We did not celebrate last year, but this year we have security and we feel better," said Rasha Ghaban, one of many women at the small Church of the Holy Family in Karradah, a mainly Shi'ite district in downtown Baghdad where many Christians live. "We hope our future will be better, God willing."
Families streamed into the church's courtyard, wrapped in heavy winter jackets to protect them from the early morning chill. Young children with neatly combed hair held their parents' hand, and women stopped by the front door to pick through a basket of small lacy headscarves, placing them over their hair before walking in.
The pews were almost full - women toward the back and on the right side of the church, the men on the left - and still more people streamed in. Outside, police armed with automatic rifles manned a checkpoint at the corner of the narrow street, searching every passing car for possible bombs.
Less than 3% of Iraq's 26 million people are Christians.
- AP
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