ICC Note: Two separate attacks on Christians in Baghdad have left five dead and are worrying other Christian residents that a new wave of targeted violence may be forthcoming. Additionally, one Mandean was found dead while another survived a stabbing. The Ministry of Interior has arrested four men, but no updates about the cases have been made public. Christians in the city are pointing to these attacks as bearing similarities to a wave of violence against religious minorities in the early 2000s.

03/22/2018 Iraq (MEC) –  Christians in Iraq request prayer following a spate of violence in Baghdad in recent weeks in which Christians and Mandeans were attacked, leaving five dead.

On 25 February, gunmen shot 28-year-old Samir Salah-Addin Younis, a Christian father of two. On 10 March, four men entered the house of Hisham Al Maskouny, a Christian doctor, and stabbed him to death. When his wife (Dr Shaza Malik Dinno) and her mother (Khairiyah Dawood Adada) tried to assist him, they were also killed. Their house was looted. That same week, a member of the Mandean religious community was kidnapped at his shop and was later found dead, while another Mandean survived a stabbing.

On 11 March, the Ministry of Interior announced that four men had been arrested, but no further news about the cases have been made public.

Although the motive seems to be criminal, these incidents are reminiscent of similar attacks on Christians and other minorities in Baghdad and Basra in the early 2000s. Those attacks sparked the emigration of tens of thousands of Christians.

Churches in Baghdad declared a state of mourning and Christians were asked to wear black ribbons. Iraq’s Minister of Interior visited Samir’s family to offer condolences. The Vice President and the Parliament Speaker denounced the crimes as ‘a threat to national unity’, and noted that the attacks were designed to ‘empty major Iraqi cities of Christians and other minorities.’

Christian leaders denounced the targeting of their community and warned against another wave of migration, as did the Iraqi Fiqh Board, the highest academic Islamic authority in the country. The UN representative in Iraq called on the government to protect minorities and warned about the effect of these attacks on the future of Iraqi minorities.

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