High_Gravity
Belligerent Drunk
An Iraqi Christian Stands Firm With His Muslim Neighbors
An Iraqi Christian Stands Firm With His Muslim Neighbors - NYTimes.com
BAGHDAD Over the past several months, Iraqs dwindling Christian population has gotten even smaller.
Since a bloody attack at a church in Baghdad in October in which more than 50 people were killed, waves of Christians have fled for the countrys Kurdish north or abroad. Others in Baghdad have moved within the capital, giving up their homes for neighborhoods where no one knows their faith.
Nassir Daood Suleiman is not one of those people.
The attack on the church had taken place Oct. 31, when assailants armed with rifles and suicide vests laid waste to the building. Three days later, Mr. Suleiman, a Christian shop owner, was shot in the neck. Still, he and his family have vowed to defy the threats.
At 8:30 p.m. on Nov. 2, Mr. Suleiman was standing in the doorway of his store in Baghdads Mansour neighborhood when two young men approached him. One of them took a gun with a noise suppressor out of a black bag and fired two shots. One bullet penetrated Mr. Suleimans neck and the other bullet struck a refrigerator.
The two attackers ran down the block to a waiting sedan.
I felt dizzy and fell down on the ground, said Mr. Suleiman, in an interview at his home in Mansour. I was bleeding severely and felt like my soul going out of my body. I was waiting for someone to save me. I felt it was the last moment of my life.
Mr. Suleimans wife, Munira, said that an 8-year-old girl came running into her house, screaming that Mr. Suleiman had been shot.
I ran quickly and saw him lying on the ground, his wife said. His eyes were closed and blood had filled the shop. I slipped because of the blood when I tried to hold him up.
Mr. Suleimans neighbors took him to the hospital, where he was treated for the gunshot wound.
Some people in Baghdad attributed the string of attacks against the Christians to extremist Muslims trying to create sectarian violence.
But Mr. Suleimans son Ragheed said that he did not blame Muslims for the attacks.
The men who attempted to kill my father are not Muslims because the Muslim people in the neighborhood are the ones who saved my father from death, Ragheed said. The men who shot my father are associated with foreign agendas and want to sabotage Iraq and sow sectarian violence.
Although Mr. Suleiman almost lost his life, he and his family have refused to leave Baghdad.
We live a better life here than those who live as foreigners in pity outside Iraq, Mr. Suleiman said. I spent more than 40 years of my life in this house, and I dont want to leave it until I die.
An Iraqi Christian Stands Firm With His Muslim Neighbors - NYTimes.com