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| Iraqi Christians mark safer Christmas in Kurdistan Posted: 25 Dec 2010 06:49 AM PST AINKAWA, Iraq (Reuters) - Ammar Ablahad fled Baghdad to the northern Iraqi region of Kurdistan just last week, determined to celebrate Christmas with his wife and baby without fear of attack. "There's a 100 percent difference," said Ablahad, 32, a civil engineer who joined thousands of other Iraqi Christians fleeing to the safer north after deadly attacks and persistent militant threats against a dwindling Christian population. In the worst recent attack, 52 people died at Baghdad's Our Lady of Salvation church on Oct. 31 when security forces stormed the church after militants took hostages during Sunday mass. Pope Benedict said in his annual Christmas message that he hoped the holiday would bring consolation to Christians in Iraq and all the Middle East, where the Vatican fears that violence such as the October attack is fuelling a Christian exodus. Fearing further bloodshed, several church leaders in cities such as Baghdad -- which is still plagued by almost daily attacks -- have urged Christians to keep Christmas low-key this year and limit celebrations to prayers and mass. The threat of fresh violence has led Iraqi security forces to erect high blast walls topped with barbed wire around several churches in Baghdad. Holiday decorations were noticeably absent. But about 300 km (190 miles) further north, in Ainkawa and other Kurdish towns, the mood is festive. Churches are decked out with fluorescent lights and holiday banners, and Christmas music blares out in the streets. Kurdistan has been an oasis of relative calm in Iraq since 1991, when the area became a semi-autonomous enclave under Western protection. The region has earned the reputation of being a safe haven in an otherwise dangerous country. On Christmas Eve, thousands of worshippers crowded into Ainkawa's Mar Yousuf church and its outside yard, decorated with bright lights and a big Christmas tree. Dozens of policemen with machine guns stood guard outside the church. Authorities stepped up security and erected checkpoints outside the town to ward off any attack, said Lieutenant Rawaz Azad, director of Ainkawa's traffic police. SANTA CLAUS AND JINGLE BELLS Outside the Mar Yousuf church, cars inched forward in a traffic jam, as the song Jingle Bells blared from a car stereo. Many of the cars were covered in colourful streamers, or had Santa Claus toys on the dashboard. On some major streets in Ainkawa, children stood together in anticipation of Santa Claus. Every year, local men dressed in red costumes drive through town in a pick-up truck, distributing gifts to local children. In Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, upscale shopping centres such as the Majidi Mall are decorated with Christmas trees and festooned with banners that say "Merry Christmas". "It's become impossible to have something like this in Baghdad," said Ablahad, huddling in the cold outside an Ainkawa church with his family. The U.N. refugee agency said last week that some 1,000 Christian families, roughly 6,000 people, had fled to Iraqi Kurdistan from Baghdad, Mosul and other areas. Iraq's Christians once numbered about 1.5 million. There are now believed to be about 850,000 out of a population estimated at 30 million. Bayan Awdesh, 50, said even her Muslim neighbours were getting into the Christmas spirit. "They have bought a Christmas tree as well," she said, as she made last-minute purchases in the Boto Bazaar. But for some of the refugees, sorrow over the lives they left behind means Christmas is no longer a cause for joy. "I won't celebrate because I have no money," said Hekanosh Harkuon, a former university professor from Baghdad, as she shopped for winter clothes for her four daughters. "My husband is a church security guard," added Harkuon. "He's our sole source of income." (Writing by Namo Abdulla; Editing by Caroline Drees) Copyright © 2010 Reuters | ||
| Airport Christmas for Europe's stranded travellers Posted: 25 Dec 2010 06:49 AM PST PARIS (Reuters) - Hundreds of travellers trapped by icy weather spent Christmas Day queuing for flights in Europe on Saturday after sleeping on camp beds overnight in Paris and Brussels airports.
Travel disruptions this month have upset year-end travel for hundreds of thousands of people and raised questions about the air industry's lack of preparation for icy weather. Flight schedules were returning to normal in Paris, thanks to fresh deliveries of de-icing fluid from Germany and the United States. But many people were still set to miss Christmas dinners at their destinations. Travel chaos was compounded by disruptions to high-speed trains and clogged roads from England to Sweden in one of Europe's snowiest Decembers. "We already had a nightmare in England and now this here," one man groaned on France's LCI television. Airports operated largely normally in Britain, Belgium and Germany on Saturday, although there were some cancellations in Frankfurt and Zurich. Several hundred people had slept overnight in Paris and Brussels airports, or in nearby hotels. At Paris's Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport, staff handed out instant coffee and pastries for breakfast on Saturday and Transport Minister Thierry Mariani told passengers he would look into what caused an acute shortage of de-icing fluid. At least 300 people slept on military-style beds at Roissy on Friday after some 400 flights were cancelled. More slept at nearby hotels, where authorities had reserved 3,300 rooms. While some people cried into mobile phones as departure boards showed long lists of cancellations, others prayed at a mass held at the airport to be able to get on their flights. A few brought champagne to drink from plastic cups and ate improvised Christmas Eve suppers of smoked salmon, salad, fish pate and cheese cubes, surrounded by suitcases, as a Santa Claus handed out sweets, toys and dolls to children. "The weather is unpredictable," said Mariani, who arrived at Roissy shortly after midnight on Friday. "You can go to all the effort you like but at the end of the day it's the weather." The cold weather was also likely to have hit British retailers in December, a survey showed. SNOW STILL FALLING The French government has come under fire for a failure to cope with a sudden snowfall this month that left thousands of motorists stuck in cars overnight around Paris, and for a shortage of de-icing fluid at airports that forced 2,000 people to sleep in airport terminals on Thursday night. Paris airports authority chief Pierre Graff said it had been hard to ramp up local supplies of de-icer because only 5 percent of production at factories of the chemical goes to airports. "Of course I feel responsible," he told LCI television. Brussels' airport had laid out camp beds for a few hundred people on Friday, but in the end only fifty spent the night there, said airport spokesman Jan Van der Cruysse. "We are back to normal now. There some delays still but a lot of airlines have also added extra flights to compensate for yesterday," he added. In Britain, snow delayed tens of thousands of passengers this week. Despite bitter overnight temperatures as low as minus 18 degrees Celsius (-0.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of Scotland and England, there was little new snow on Saturday. A spokeswoman for London's Heathrow Airport said only a handful of flights would be cancelled on Christmas Day. The airport will handle some 70,000 passengers on 600 flights. "There are no snow-related delays today, apart from any cancellations to other airports that aren't open," the spokeswoman said. "As an airport we are operating fine." Eurostar trains linking London with Paris and northern Europe were not running for Christmas Day but should run a close-to-normal service on Sunday. Eurostar was hit with crippling delays during the week after speed limits were introduced to cope with the snow and ice. In Germany, 30 cm (12 inches) of snow fell overnight, causing train delays between Hannover and Berlin. Trains to the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen, a tourist destination, were axed. Light road traffic on Christmas Day meant fewer problems were reported, however, and airports were operating normally. (Additional reporting by Peter Griffiths in London, Justyna Pawlak in Brussels, Erik Kirschbaum in Berlin; Editing by Maria Golovnina) Copyright © 2010 Reuters |
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