Iraqi Christians pray for a 'rebirth'

MOSUL, Iraq — Iraqi Christians in the northern city of Mosul say this year has been the worst in living memory. After a wave of killings and attacks in October, more than 2,000 families fled to nearby villages.

Mosul remains one of the most dangerous places in Iraq and a stubborn holdout of the insurgency, but security has improved enough that at least half of those families have returned. On Thursday, they braved embattled streets and biting cold and rain to attend Christmas Masses and pray for their safety.

At the nearly thousand-year-old Chaldean church of Miskinta, where a bomb had exploded in October and graffiti praising the insurgency remains on a nearby wall, about 50 parishioners followed a deacon outside to the courtyard, where a fire was lighted to symbolize the birth of Christ.

Many tried to hold back tears as they prayed for "the rebirth of tormented Iraq to a new life of forgiveness and compassion."

Among those attending the Mass was Fadi Ammar, 5, who lost his father and another relative in a bombing in the Mosul Jadid neighborhood on Dec. 1, which killed 21 people. The family had just returned to Mosul after fleeing in October to their ancestral village in the adjacent Nineveh Plain.

Another Mass, at St. Paul's on the east side of the city, was held on Wednesday afternoon instead of on Christmas Eve because of security precautions.

To the extent that security has improved, it is thanks largely to the nearly 3,000 national police officers sent here from Baghdad to bolster the local force in October.