| Roadside bombs in Mosul hit buses carrying Christian students |
| By Carol Glatz - Catholic News Service | |||||||||||||||
| Monday, 03 May 2010 | |||||||||||||||
| At least four people died and more than 170 were injured when buses carrying Christian university students were bombed in a roadside attack near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. |  "It was a brutal, unprecedented attack. We are shocked since the victims were not soldiers or militants, but just students who were carrying books, pens and their dreams of growing up and serving their own nation," said Redemptorist Father Bashar Wardu of Irbil. "Christians are still being targeted," he told Fides, the Vatican's missionary news agency, May 3. Three buses carrying students from the village of Qaraqosh to a university in Mosul were struck by a roadside explosion followed by a car bombing May 2. Some of the victims included bystanders. The buses were escorted by Iraqi soldiers, and the bombings occurred between two checkpoints staffed by U.S., Iraqi and Iraqi Kurdish soldiers. The minority Christian community "feels unprotected and left at the mercy of extremists," said Father Wardu, adding that the government needed to do more to guarantee the safety and security of its citizens. Syrian Catholic Archbishop Georges Casmoussa of Mosul told Fides May 3 that Christians were ready to call for the United Nations to intervene and help protect them. "If the civil and military authorities do not protect us, we will have to ask for help from the international headquarters" of the United Nations, he said.  He said Iraqi Christians undergo some sort of attack every week, if not every day. "Fear reigns among the Christian communities," he said, adding that the injustice against Christians has been met with "general indifference" by civil and government authorities. Chaldean Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni of Baghdad told SIR, the Italian bishops' news agency, that Iraqi Christians feel at a loss as to how to protect themselves from further attacks. |
