Look into their faces and you can see one of the world's oldest Christian communities searching for hope in the midst of desolation.

Iraq's Christians are wounded, killed, and grieving in the violence that's shaking their country. But this isn't just fallout from the fighting between Shia and Sunni Muslims.

Christians in Iraq are deliberately targeted.

"It is too dangerous for Christians in Baghdad we didn't go to church because we were afraid they would blow it up," said Nadua Khamwa.

More than 15 churches have been attacked since the fall of Saddam in 2003 and hundreds of Christians have been killed. In the past six months alone, seven priests have been kidnapped and two of them murdered.

To understand the significance you must look at the history.

The bloodlines of about 70 percent of Iraq's 750,000 Christians reach back to the Chaldeans or Assyrians, prominent peoples in the Old Testament. Their ancestors began worshipping in Iraq more than 500 years before the birth of Mohammed and Islam.

Many Assyrian Christians still speak and worship in Aramaic-the ancient language of Jesus.

But today fear is widespread throughout the traditional Iraqi church. Last Christmas, Chaldean and Assyrian clergy urged their members to stay home and avoid public celebrations for fear of reprisals.

And it's not just in Baghdad. Even in northern Iraq churches are on edge.

In a quiet suburb in the city of Kirkuk, Basha'er Sameer Sawa is at home with her husband and daughter, where they spend almost all of their time these days. Fear of kidnap or attack has turned their home into a prison, she says.

"We cannot go to church for prayers or even go shopping," she said. "We fear to do anything. Honestly, we are oppressed here."

One Assyrian church in Kirkuk stands as a symbol of the community's past glory. But the present state of affairs is deeply troubling for the city's Assyrian archbishop, Louis Sako.

"Many Christians have been kidnapped, and also beheaded one priest. Just like the imams and other Muslims, we are feeling bad, we are upset because Iraqis are killed," Sako said. "Now we are looking forward for a new Iraq, a new country, (where) each one of us can live with dignity and freedom."

Tens of thousands of Assyrians and Chaldeans have fled to neighboring countries such as Syria and Jordan.

And while Christians make up only about 5 percent of Iraq's population, the U.N. high commissioner on refugees say they make up 40 percent of the Iraqis who have fled the country.

Dr. Donny George was director of the national museum in Baghdad until he felt compelled to leave Iraq last year, prompted, he says, by death threats from Muslim extremists.

He believes that unless the international community intervenes, Christian life in Iraq faces extinction.

"There will be no Christians in Iraq," George said. "There will be no Assyrians in Iraq. This is an awful thing, a country where the original people from that country are driven away. So the international community has to do something about it."

By Wendy Griffith
www.CWNews.com