8th August, 2004

Australia’s Christian community has expressed its solidarity with Christians living in Iraq following the deadly attacks on five churches in Mosul and Baghdad.

In a statement, Reverend John Henderson, the general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA), called for people to pray for all Iraqis suffering and dying at hands of those who engage in terrorism.

“It is a tragic sign of the precarious situation in Iraq that people of any religious persecution should be targeted as they worship,” he said, referring to the fact that most of the victims of the latest attaches were Christians attending church services.

“The Christian community in Australia, and I’m sure all Australians, expresses deep sorrow to the families of those killed in these blasts and to the wider Christian community in Iraq.”

Reverend Henderson said the churches also endorsed a call from a prominent Christian leader in Iraq - the Chaldean Patriarch in Baghdad - to forgive those responsible for the blasts.

Seventeen people were killed and more than 50 injured in the blasts which rocked Baghdad and Mosul last weekend.

Reverend Henderson also said Australian churches and affiliated aid organisations would continue providing assistance - including supplying drugs and medical equipment to hospitals as well as development programs including a supplementary food program to help malnourished children and the provision of water and sanitation facilities - to the Iraqi people.

- DAVID ADAMS