A roadside bomb exploded near the rear entrance of a Catholic church in Baghdad after Easter services on Sunday, wounding at least two police officers and two civilians.
The bomb blew up outside Sacred Heart church in Baghdad’s central Karrada district, shattering windows in nearby buildings and severely damaging a police pick-up truck at the church gate. The explosion occurred after the church had been cleared of parishioners following services on Easter Sunday, which marks the resurrection of Christ after his crucifixion. Two security sources said two policemen and two civilians were hurt in the bombing but a Reuters TV cameraman saw three wounded police and four injured civilians at a local hospital. “We had just reached the scene to distribute food to the policemen there and when we arrived the bomb blew up,” police officer Hassan Dalli said at the hospital where he was taken for treatment. A colleague was stretched out on a gurney nearby.
The country’s Christian community has been on high alert since a militant assault on a Syrian Catholic cathedral in central Baghdad last October in which 52 people died. Iraq’s Christians once numbered about 1.5 million but are now believed to have fallen to less than 850,000 out of a population of 30 million.
