Some Iraqi Christians Feel Like Refugees In Their Own Country

One of the world's oldest Christian communities, in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, is struggling to survive after a string of murders over the past month that has forced families to flee.

Relentless sectarian violence that plagues the Iraqi city of Mosul, on the border between Kurdistan and the Nenovah province, has driven tens of thousands of Christians from the city since the US-led invasion, something Father Mazin Ishou Mitoka knows only too well. In late February, tragedy struck his family.

"I received news from my cousin that gunmen had broken into my home and killed my father and two of my brothers," remembered the catholic priest. "I was in church and the news struck me like a bolt of lightning," he said.

The gunmen claimed they needed information and wanted to see identification, but the real purpose of the visit was to commit murder - part of a wave of killings in Mosul directed at the Christian population.

"The whole event did not take more than three minutes. The women and children remained inside the house; they stayed in a separate room. After a while they heard gunshots and as a result they ran out and my mother saw my father and my younger brother covered in blood. So she got out of the house and onto the street without seeing my older brother and started to scream from the shock," Father Mazin Ishou Mitoka told RT

To escape the violence, Father Mitoka along with some 250 families, moved to Karkosh, the city with the largest concentration of Christians in Iraq.

The Director of High Committee for the Affairs of Christians in Karkosh, Bashar Gargis Habash, explained that "The displacement of Christians [in Iraq] started in 2005 throughout Iraq and the media has talked about it clearly and openly, even if part of the media has tried to lessen the importance of it. 3,000 families have arrived in Karkosh since 2005 - some10,000 people. It is not a simple issue. The international community has knowledge of this, but there is silence and a cover-up, or they do not have the guts to take a specific stand."

The effect of the violence towards Christians is felt hard in Karkosh, with signs condemning the incidents in Mosul. Around town you will find several churches with people practicing their faith freely, but to allow this to happen, the city has taken some extreme measures.