Pope meets survivors of Baghdad massacre

BY STAFF REPORTER
POPE BENEDICT XVI has met two dozen Iraqis who were injured when their cathedral in Baghdad was attacked in October.
The Italian foreign ministry arranged for 26 injured Iraqis, including three children, and 21 accompanying family members to fly to Rome. The injured were treated at the Gemelli Hospital and their family members were housed in apartments belonging to the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, which operates the hospital.
Nicola Cerbino, hospital spokesman, said that only two of the injured were still hospitalised, but they were well enough to travel with their family members to the Vatican for the brief audience with the Pope.
The entire Iraqi group – close to 50 people – will remain guests of the university until mid-December, Mr Cerbino said. After that, the Italian foreign minister will help them return home or settle elsewhere.
Fifty-eight people died in the attack on the Syrian Catholic church in Baghdad on October 31 after military officials tried to end a terrorist siege of the church.
Meanwhile, the killings of Christians continues in Iraq; where Islamists linked to alQaeda have threatened to annihi late them. An elderly Christian couple were killed in their home on Sunday night in Baghdad, the latest in a string of attacks.
Hikmat Sammak and his wife, Samira, were stabbed to death in their Baladiyat neighbourhood, a predominantly Shia area.
The couple had sold their house and gone to live in Ainkawa-Erbil in the north, where it is generally considered safer for Christians. They had returned to Baghdad days ago to finalise the transaction and sell their furniture.
Their deaths came on the same day that Benedict XVI made an appeal for those who are suffering from violence and discrimi nation, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. The latest murders have sparked a fresh exodus of Christians from the urban centres around Baghdad to Kurdishmajority regions in the north.
The Azzaman newspaper claims that 500 families are moving into the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan. “In Sulaymaniyah alone, at least 85 families arrived within two weeks,” AsiaNews reported. “The displaced people leave behind them homes, possessions and their work, as well as parishes and monasteries, among the oldest in Christendom.” Authorities have reportedly promised fleeing Christians a stipend of just over £250, a gesture seen as insufficient since it would not cover even a month’s rent in the north. Families fleeing persecution in Mosul and Baghdad are also to receive emergency aid from Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. The charity for oppressed Christians has agreed payments of £12,650 for victims of the cathedral massacre while £8,450 will be sent to poverty-stricken Christians from Baghdad who have fled to the Iraqi cities of Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah.
In Zakho diocese, in the far north of the country, ACN is giving £21,100 to provide food packages for Christian families.