Iraq curfew in some Christian areas after church bombs

(July 13, 2009) The ethnically mixed Iraqi city of Mosul imposed a curfew on vehicles in Christian neighbourhoods on Monday, responding to a spate of bomb attacks targeting churches in Baghdad, police said. It was imposed to prevent similar bombings around the northern city, still Iraq's most violent and home to most of the country's Christians. Bombs exploded outside five Christian churches in Baghdad on Sunday, in apparently coordinated attacks that killed four people and wounded more than 30, Iraqi police said. In the most serious attack, a car bomb exploded near a church in eastern Baghdad, killing four people and wounding 21. On Monday a car bomb exploded near Our lady of Fatima Church in Mosul. Iraq's Christians, who number about 750,000, are a small minority in a mainly Muslim country of about 28 million people. Christians have sporadically been targets, mostly in Baghdad and Mosul, leading many of them to flee abroad. The sectarian violence that nearly tore Iraq apart in 2006 and 2007 has faded but militants still carry out attacks. Some 2,000 families, an estimated 12,000 people, fled Mosul after a campaign of threats and attacks on Christians there in October last year, but many have since returned.