American soldiers called Dora the most dangerous place on Earth. No journalists should be venturing in Dora District, Baghdad, Iraq.
They were probably taken for ransom but that is not new to Dora. The violent groups living outside of government only have one interest and that is money. Other than money, there is nothing for them to negotiate.
May 9, 2007
Baghdad -- Christians are fleeing in droves (click here) from the southern Baghdad district of Dora after Sunni insurgents told them they would be killed unless they converted to Islam or left, according to Christian leaders and families who fled.
Similar episodes of what has become known as sectarian cleansing raged through Baghdad neighborhoods last year as Sunnis drove Shiites from Sunni areas and Shiites drove Sunnis from Shiite ones, but this marks the first apparent attempt to empty an entire Baghdad neighborhood of Christians, the Christians say.
The exodus began three weeks ago after a fatwa, or religious edict, was issued by Sunni insurgents offering Christians a stark choice: to convert to Islam and pay an ancient Islamic tax known as "jizyah," or to depart within 24 hours and leave their property behind. If they did neither, they said, they faced death.
Sunni gunmen have been enforcing the edict with a dozen or so kidnappings, a shooting, by knocking on doors and by posting leaflets on walls--actions that have prompted hundreds of Christians to leave an area that was once home to one of Baghdad's largest Christian communities.
The insurgents' campaign in Dora is the first major incident of sectarian cleansing since the Baghdad security plan, a centerpiece of President Bush's strategy to win in Iraq, went into effect in mid-February and extra U.S. troops began arriving in Baghdad in an effort to retake the city from insurgents and militias.
"They are talking about security plans and bringing peace, but nothing arrived in Dora. There are no rules, no government and no government forces," said Bishop Shlimon Warduni, auxiliary bishop of the Chaldean Patriarchate, the ancient Christian sect to which most of the Christians in the Dora area belong. "This is a full-scale persecution. In all of Iraq's history we didn't face a situation like this."...
They were probably taken for ransom but that is not new to Dora. The violent groups living outside of government only have one interest and that is money. Other than money, there is nothing for them to negotiate.
May 9, 2007
Baghdad -- Christians are fleeing in droves (click here) from the southern Baghdad district of Dora after Sunni insurgents told them they would be killed unless they converted to Islam or left, according to Christian leaders and families who fled.
Similar episodes of what has become known as sectarian cleansing raged through Baghdad neighborhoods last year as Sunnis drove Shiites from Sunni areas and Shiites drove Sunnis from Shiite ones, but this marks the first apparent attempt to empty an entire Baghdad neighborhood of Christians, the Christians say.
The exodus began three weeks ago after a fatwa, or religious edict, was issued by Sunni insurgents offering Christians a stark choice: to convert to Islam and pay an ancient Islamic tax known as "jizyah," or to depart within 24 hours and leave their property behind. If they did neither, they said, they faced death.
Sunni gunmen have been enforcing the edict with a dozen or so kidnappings, a shooting, by knocking on doors and by posting leaflets on walls--actions that have prompted hundreds of Christians to leave an area that was once home to one of Baghdad's largest Christian communities.
The insurgents' campaign in Dora is the first major incident of sectarian cleansing since the Baghdad security plan, a centerpiece of President Bush's strategy to win in Iraq, went into effect in mid-February and extra U.S. troops began arriving in Baghdad in an effort to retake the city from insurgents and militias.
"They are talking about security plans and bringing peace, but nothing arrived in Dora. There are no rules, no government and no government forces," said Bishop Shlimon Warduni, auxiliary bishop of the Chaldean Patriarchate, the ancient Christian sect to which most of the Christians in the Dora area belong. "This is a full-scale persecution. In all of Iraq's history we didn't face a situation like this."...
