Live In Fear Or Flee

As Their Numbers Dwindle, Christians In Iraq Feel Increasingly Vulnerable

BAGHDAD -- Nabil Comanny and his family endured the dead bodies left to decompose along the road in their southern Dora neighborhood.

They accepted the criminal gangs that roamed the area, searching for targets to kidnap.

And neither the utility failures nor the mountains of trash in the street could drive them away.

As Christians, the Comannys had learned to keep a low profile. They even stayed in their house after many Muslim neighbors fled the daily chaos when sectarian bloodshed between Shiite and Sunni militants broke out in 2006, making this one of Baghdad's most embattled districts.

But the hand-scrawled note at their door was the final straw. The message commanded the family to select one of these options:

-- Convert to Islam.

-- Pay a fee of nearly $300 monthly for "protection."

-- Leave the area.

Failure to comply would result in death.

"We don't have weapons, and the government doesn't protect us. What else can we do?" said Comanny, a 37-year-old journalist whose family abandoned its modest home of 11 years.

Extreme Islamic militants increasingly are targeting Christians in Iraq, especially in the capital. As a result, Iraq's Christian community -- long the minority in a largely Muslim country -- continues to dwindle.

While meaningful numbers are difficult to come by, the last Iraqi census, conducted in 1987, counted 1 million Christians, although many fled after the United Nations imposed sanctions in the 1990s. Today, national aid groups estimate that between 300,000 and 600,000 Christians remain among an estimated 25 million people.