AMMAN, Jordan - Iraqi sisters
Nasrin and Rihab enjoyed a relatively peaceful life in
Baghdad until the night almost a year ago when
militiamen tortured and beheaded their only brother.
Then came threatening phone
calls, said the sisters, both members of
Iraq's small
Christian community. And not long afterward, armed men
broke into their home and beat them.
They "started hitting us,
pulling our hair and pounding on my sister's stomach
with their boots," wailed Nasrin, now 51, in an
interview in their tiny apartment in Amman.
Rihab's gallbladder burst, and
blood came out of her mouth, the sisters recalled. She
was rushed to a hospital and when she recovered, with a
large scar still across her middle, the two fled to
Jordan.
"We escaped after that. They
vowed to kill us," said Rihab, 56, who like her sister
would not allow her family name to be used for fear of
more attacks.
Their story is a chilling
reminder of troubles faced by minority Christians in
Iraq amid sectarian fighting between Shiite and Sunni
Muslims. Churches have been bombed, and businesses —
particularly hair salons and liquor shops _destroyed.
As a result, many Christians
have joined the flood of Iraqis fleeing their country.
There are an estimated 750,000 Iraqi refugees in Jordan,
including about 2,000 Christians. An additional 1
million Iraqis have fled to
Syria.
Jordan has been especially
worried about the influence of Shiite refugees, who are
seen as a menace to the country's security and
predominantly Sunni character. But Christians — most are
Chaldean Catholics — have also faced a tough time here.
Rihab and Nasrin, who have put
several locks and deadbolts on the door of their
two-room apartment, say they are haunted by memories of
Baghdad.
Militants kidnapped their
brother, Muhanna, tied him up in a deserted house and
tortured him, then killed him.
"He tried to call us from his
phone, but the line went dead," Rihab said. "They took
his cell phone and made threatening calls to us. .. We
realized that something terrible had happened."
Police later discovered his
body.
"Now we have no one at all to
care for us and protect us," wept Rihab, clutching
pictures of the bloody body.
The sisters, neither married,
can barely afford their $200 monthly rent here. They
have no family left in Iraq. A niece lives in Australia;
the sisters were recently denied permission to settle
there.
"I help an old woman. ... I'm
tired. ... but we trust in God," said Nasrin.
Rihab believes Christians no
longer have a future in Iraq, and thinks militants
targeted her family because of their faith.
"'We will kill you, like we
killed your brother,'" she said the militants
threatened, over the phone, after the brother's death.
"They shouted obscenities at us, telling us, 'You are
Christians.'"
Afterward, the family home was
attacked and they fled.
Leila Salman, a Christian whose
two daughters were killed by Shiite militiamen last
year, is also now living in Jordan and is grim about the
future.
Her daughters, Linda and Rita,
both in their 20s, were killed when men fired on a
minibus taking workers home from a U.S. military
facility in Baghdad. The two had washed clothes and
worked at a dispensary for the U.S. military.
"We're being persecuted because
the allied forces are Christian, and they think we are
collaborators," their mother said.
