Double targeted killings against the Christian community in Kirkuk by AsiaNews.it. October 03, 2011.
Yesterday in the district of Muthana, an armed group assassinated the 30 year old Catholic Bassam Isho. October 1, Emmanuel Polos Hanna, was found at the edge of the road to Baghdad shot to death. Christian sources in Kirkuk: "The attacks continue, in the total silence of the world."
Kirkuk (AsiaNews) – A double murder has marked the Christian community in Kirkuk this weekend. In the northern Iraqi city, considered strategic for the huge oil fields in the center of a bitter political and economic dispute between Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds, Christians continue to die in the complete indifference of the authorities. Kidnappings for extortion, assassinations and attacks on churches and Christians are now episodes of daily life, and the local and national government seem incapable of defending them. AsiaNews sources in Kirkuk, anonymous for security reasons, denounced that "the attacks on Christians continue and the world remains totally silent. It’s as if – he continues- we’ve been swallowed up by the night. "
Yesterday afternoon, Bassam Isho a 30 year old Catholic restaurant employee in the district of Muthana, was shot dead by a group of strangers. After the murder, the band scattered covering their tracks and, so far, there is no further information. The young man will be buried in Telkef. On October 1, on the outskirts of Kirkuk, the corpse of a second Christian was found, also shot to death. The body of Hanna Polos Emmanuel, born in 1951, lay sprawled on the edge of the road that leads from the city to Baghdad, the capital of Iraq.
The weekend killings are only the latest in a long trail of blood and violence: on August 15 last a few bombs exploded against the church of St. Ephrem in Kirkuk. The Syriac Orthodox Church is a few hundred meters from the Chaldean cathedral in the center of the city. Again, August 2 a car bomb exploded in front of the Syrian Catholic Church of the Holy Family, injuring 15 people. On the same day, another car bomb, parked next to a Presbyterian church, was defused before it exploded.
Christians in Iraq have increasingly become the target of Islamic fundamentalism which is still active. At the same time, they are also targeted in local feuds. Kirkuk, with its 900 thousand inhabitants, and most important deposits of oil in Iraq, has long been the center of a political-ethnic conflict between Arabs, Turkmens and Kurds. The latter want it annexed to the Kurdistan region, while both Arabs and Turkmen want to maintain links with the Iraqi central government. (DS)
Assyria
\ã-'sir-é-ä\ n (1998)
1: an ancient empire of Ashur
2: a democratic state in Bet-Nahren, Assyria (northern
Iraq, northwestern Iran, southeastern Turkey and eastern Syria.)
3:
a democratic state that fosters the social and political rights to all of
its inhabitants irrespective of their religion, race, or gender
4: a democratic state that believes in the freedom of
religion, conscience, language, education and culture in faithfulness to the
principles of the United Nations Charter —
Atour synonym
Ethnicity, Religion, Language
»
Israeli, Jewish, Hebrew
»
Assyrian, Christian, Aramaic
»
Saudi Arabian, Muslim, Arabic
Assyrian
\ã-'sir-é-an\ adj or n (1998)
1: descendants of the ancient empire of Ashur
2: the Assyrians, although representing but one single
nation as the direct heirs of the ancient Assyrian Empire, are now
doctrinally divided, inter sese, into five principle
ecclesiastically designated religious sects with their corresponding
hierarchies and distinct church governments, namely, Church of the
East, Chaldean, Maronite, Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholic.
These formal divisions had their origin in the 5th century of the
Christian Era. No one can coherently understand the Assyrians
as a whole until he can distinguish that which is religion or church
from that which is nation -- a matter which is particularly
difficult for the people from the western world to understand; for
in the East, by force of circumstances beyond their control,
religion has been made, from time immemorial, virtually into a
criterion of nationality.
3:
the Assyrians have been referred to as Aramaean, Aramaye, Ashuraya,
Ashureen, Ashuri, Ashuroyo, Assyrio-Chaldean, Aturaya, Chaldean,
Chaldo, ChaldoAssyrian, ChaldoAssyrio, Jacobite, Kaldany, Kaldu,
Kasdu, Malabar, Maronite, Maronaya, Nestorian, Nestornaye, Oromoye,
Suraya, Syriac, Syrian, Syriani, Suryoye, Suryoyo and Telkeffee. —
Assyrianism verb
Aramaic
\ar-é-'máik\
n (1998)
1: a Semitic language which became the lingua franca of
the Middle East during the ancient Assyrian empire.
2: has been referred to as Neo-Aramaic, Neo-Syriac, Classical
Syriac, Syriac, Suryoyo, Swadaya and Turoyo.
