CHRISTIAN TEENAGER KILLED IN IRAQ DRIVE-BY SHOOTING (AFP)
Agence France Presse
Nov 13 2009
France
MOSUL, Iraq — Gunmen killed a Christian teenager in a drive-by
shooting outside his family home on Friday in the restive northern
Iraqi city of Mosul, police said.
"Unidentified gunmen opened fire from a speeding black car on the
adolescent before fleeing the scene in Tahrir," a police officer said,
referring to a Christian neighbourhood in eastern Mosul.
A neighbour said 16-year-old Rami Katchik, a member of the minority
Armenian community, had been hosing down the entrance to his family
home when the shooting occurred.
"His father had just gone into the house to get a shovel and ran out
when he heard the gunshots and saw three men in the car," said the
neighbour Girgis Paulos.
It was unclear if he had been targeted because of his faith.
But a local priest, Hazem Girgis, described the killing as part of
"crimes aimed at uprooting Christians and forcing them to flee."
Thousands of Christians fled Mosul last year because of violence that
claimed the lives of 40 people from the community.
A report on Tuesday by Human Rights Watch said Iraqi minorities,
including Christians, in northern Iraq are the collateral victims of
a conflict between Arabs and Kurds over who controls the country’s
disputed provinces.
Iraq’s disputed provinces include Nineveh, of which Mosul is the
capital, the oil-rich province and city of Kirkuk, and Diyala.
Since the US-led invasion of 2003, hundreds of Iraqi Christians have
been killed and a string of churches attacked.
Around 800,000 Christians lived in Iraq at the time of the invasion,
but their number has since shrunk by around a third or more as
members of the minority community have fled the country, according
to Christian leaders.