Iraqi Christians fear Muslim wrath

BAGHDAD - Two tear-shaped drops of blood remained on the living-room floor, days after Muslim fanatics shot their way into a home and executed two children because the family is Christian.

Now, some Iraqi Chaldean Christians say they fear that militants will attack churches in Baghdad on Easter Sunday.

Chaldea was the name 2,000 years ago of a portion of Iraq, then part of the Persian Empire. Chaldean Christians broke from the early Christian church over the question of Jesus’ divinity but were reunited with the Roman Catholic Church in the 1670s.

“Our people are afraid of some sort of massacre on Easter. Four churches have come to us to ask about how to hire security,” said Isoh Barnsavm, an officer in the Bethnahrain Patriotic Union, one of several political parties that represent segments of Iraq’s million-strong Christian minority.

“Neighbors are now receiving threatening letters. Some of the threats are from unknown groups,” Mr. Barnsavm said. “Others are from Ansar al-Islam,” a group linked with al Qaeda that was targeted by U.S.-led forces during the war.

“They say, ‘You have to be a Muslim, or else we will kill you.’”

Late last month, the family of the two murdered children received a note warning that they would be killed and “doomed to hell.”

The next day, the gunman came and killed the two children, each with an AK-47 rifle shot to the head that left blood flowing across the living room. Their mother and several other children in the house were allowed to live, presumably to tell others.

Some blood remains on the floor and wall, where a framed picture of the Virgin Mary with a golden halo looks out over the room.

Sleepless nights

Two uncles have since moved in to protect the family.

One of the men, disheveled after another sleepless night spent clutching his own AK-47, pleaded with a visiting reporter for help as his eyes filled with tears.

“How can you guarantee we won’t be killed? We can’t sleep. We can’t go out to work. We’re so scared that we are carrying our guns all the time. It all happened in less than 10 seconds,” the uncle said.

The mother, rail thin beneath her black mourning dress, sat quietly with her surviving children.

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