And you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. Matthew 10:22 (NRSV)
Mosul Christians (2010)
Eight Killed in Ten Days
Eight Christians were killed within the space of ten days in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in February 2010. The first, Rayan Salem Elias, was killed outside his home on the 14th by armed assailants, and the next day a Christian greengrocer, Fatukhi Munir, was gunned down in his shop in a drive-by shooting. On the 16th two Christian students, Zia Toma (21) and Ramsin Shmael (22), were on their way to the local university when gunmen opened fire on them. Zia was killed and Ramsin wounded. They had already been displaced from their homes in Baghdad by the instability there.
Another student, Wissam George (20), went missing on the 17th on his way to the institute where he was studying to be a teacher. His body was found in the street that afternoon, riddled with bullets. Sabah Yacob Dahan was found murdered on the 19th, having been abducted from his shop five days earlier. And on the 24th Aiechoa Metoka and two of his sons, Mukhlos and Basem, were killed in their home by three gunmen. They were the father and brothers of a prominent Christian leader, who had himself been kidnapped (and later released) two years previously.
These murders were part of a series of anti-Christian incidents in Mosul around this time; seven bomb attacks on Christian targets left many injured and property damaged. As a result of this outbreak of violence, hundreds of Christian families fled the city. They joined the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians who have been driven out of their homes by anti-Christian hostility since the Gulf War of 1990-91.
In truth, without affliction there is no life.
Isaac of Syria (7th century)