Iraqi Christians’ Subdued Christmas

Members of Iraq’s Christian minority are celebrating Christmas this year with sober restraint. Violence has haunted Iraqi Christians since the U.S.’s 2003 invasion, causing at least half of Iraq’s pre-invasion population to leave their ancestral homelands. An attack on a Baghdad Church in October took 60 lives, and since then, around 1,000 Christian families have fled Baghdad and Mosul, the most important Christian city in the country. For Christians, said one Iraqi Christian leader, “These are the worst and most perilous times.”