Two Chaldean Priests Kidnapped in Baghdad , Iraq

Archbishop says kidnappers want to force Christians out of the country.

by Peter Lamprecht

ISTANBUL, August 17 (Compass) – Iraqi church leaders issued appeals today for the release of a Chaldean Catholic priest kidnapped in southeast Baghdad yesterday morning.

In an e-mailed statement, Chaldean Archbishop of Kirkuk Louis Sako called for the release of Father Saad Sirop of St. Jacob parish in Baghdad ’s Doura district.

The appeal quoted Sura 5 of the Quran, asking that Muslims protect priests and monks. Sako also noted that Sirop was a good man who had preached and practiced love and peace.

“I think that there are two reasons these kidnappings are taking place,” Sako said over the telephone. “The first reason is money. But the second reason is that they want to push Christians out of Iraq .”

The archbishop said that Doura was a majority Sunni Muslim area with a significant minority of 3,000 Christians. He said that Sunnis moving into the area from other parts of Iraq wanted to take possession of the Christians’ homes.

“Sirop was on his way home from celebrating mass at St. Jacob church at about 6:30 a.m. when his car was stopped by three armed men with masks,” Sako said. “They forced him into their car but left his driver alone.”

The clergyman’s kidnapping was also reported today on Iraqi news websites “Buratha News” and “Aswat Al-Iraq.” According to the latter, the Iraqi Islamic Party has demanded that Sirop’s kidnappers free him.

Chaldean Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Baghdad Shlemon Warduni, traveling outside of the country, also issued an appeal for the priest’s release. He directly addressed Sirop’s captors, saying that kidnapping a clergyman who had faithfully served his country did not help their cause.

Fr. Sirop, 30, was scheduled to travel to Rome in September to complete a doctorate in philosophy, Archbishop Sako said. “Until now we have had no news from him,” the clergyman confirmed.

Second Priest Kidnapped

Sirop is the second Chaldean Catholic priest to be kidnapped in Baghdad this month. According to Sako, Father Raad Kashan of Baghdad ’s Battawin district was also abducted by a group seeking ransom almost two weeks ago.

The priest managed to escape after three days in captivity by promising to return to his captors with funds for his release, Sako said. According to the archbishop, Fr. Kashan immediately left for Germany to avoid reprisal attacks for not paying the ransom.

Many Iraqi Christians believe that violence against them is motivated in part by their perceived religious connection with Western countries controlling Iraq .

Christians have also been specifically targeted for running liquor stores and beauty salons, deemed offensive to followers of strict Sunni and Shiite versions of Islam who make up the majority of Iraq’s 25 million people.

But violence against Christians, estimated to constitute 3 percent of the country’s population, has not always been religiously motivated.

Christians have also suffered for simply being an “easy target,” one Iraqi priest now living outside Iraq told Compass.

Two Christian brothers were shot by terrorists in their carpentry store in Mosul on August 12, Father Emmanuel Youkhana said. “There is no direct evidence [that they were targeted for their Christian identity],” the priest commented. “But the fact is that the terrorists know that when their victims are Christians, they will not take revenge.”

Kidnapping rings that have sprung up in the post-war era often target Christians for purely financial reasons. Along with foreigners, Christians are viewed as lucrative victims whose traditionally middle-class families will pay higher ransoms.

Following the kidnapping and subsequent release of Mosul ’s Syrian Catholic Archbishop in January 2005, it remained unclear whether the abduction had been motivated by religion or money.

Iraq ’s indigenous Christians have been steadily leaving the country over the past two years as their community has come under repeated attack. Though numbers are difficult to verify, sources close to the Iraqi church say that tens of thousands of Christians have fled to Syria and Jordan .

According to a report from the German Society for Endangered Peoples, many of the country’s Christians are also internally displaced within Iraq ’s borders.

“Many of our people are moving to the northern Kurdish areas because it’s cheaper than moving abroad,” Archbishop Sako confirmed.

A wave of Baghdad church bombings in August and September 2004 triggered a steady exodus of Christians to neighboring Syria and Jordan . The simultaneous bombing of six churches in Mosul and Baghdad last January furthered that trend.

Yet many attacks against Iraq ’s Christians are simply part of daily life in the chaotic post-Saddam era.

A recent upsurge of violence in Baghdad has prompted the United States and Iraq to allocate 50,000 troops to comb the capital for members of armed insurgent groups, Reuters reported yesterday, amid new outbreaks of violence in Mosul and the southern city of Basra .