The parish priest, father Raghiid Ganni, and three subdeacons were killed in front of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul yesterday afternoon. The news appeared on the website Baghdadhope which relays local sources speaking of "a cold-blooded execution. The murderers waited for the priest to get into his car, after Mass, with his three assistants before they opened fire". There are no other details except that yesterday at 08.30 pm (Mosul time) not even the police could get near the Church, located in the neighbourhood of Hay Al-Noor, to collect the dead bodies. Father Ganni had already been the victim of attacks and threats, and the Church of the Holy Spirit had been attacked a few months ago. The Chaldeian priest had taken part, offering his testimony, in the vigil for the Eucharistic Congress of Bari in 2005. Father Ganni’s death coincides with the Synod of the Chaldeian Church, which is in progress in Al Qosh, just 25 kilometres from Mosul. The heaviness of the persecution of Iraqi Christians was also highlighted by the news, a few days ago, that some Islamic terrorists had taken hold of the convent Angelo Raphael, in Al Mikanik, in the neighbourhood of Dora, of the Chaldeian sisters of the Sacred Heart in Baghdad. Now the convent is a fundamentalists’ operations base.
