Mosul (AsiaNews) - Police in Mosul found the body of a Christian woman with her throat cut. The gruesome discovery was made today in an area where attacks have been perpetrated in the past against members of the city's Christian minority, some, like abducted Bishop Faraj Rahho and Fr Ragheed Ganni, murdered.

Sources told AsiaNews that the victim is Shdha Elias, a 54-year-old Chaldean, who worked as a teacher "in a school in the al Bath neighbourhood." She "lived however in Bar Nirgal, near the university". With her death, she joins "the long list of Christian martyrs in Mosul."

For the source, "Tensions between Sunnis and Shias are running high across Iraq, not only in the North. And peace and national reconciliation appear far off."

Mosul is a stronghold of Sunni Wahhabism, which is closely tied to Saudi Arabia. For experts on Iraqi politics, the aim is "to set up a state based on Sharia," with the Qur'an and the Sunnah as the basis of legislation and "Islam as the only state religion". In such a system, members of other religions can choose between conversion, flight or paying taxes for non-Muslims.

In northern Iraq, Christians have been targeted for murder and kidnapping for the purpose of extortion. They have also been caught in the crossfire between Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds vying for power and control of the area's rich oil resources.

In ten years of conflict, the Christian community has lost more than half of its members in an exodus of 'Biblical' proportions following a series of murders.

A Christian official in Mosul Governatorate, anonymous for security reasons, acknowledged that "many Christian families" have fled. "They have lost confidence in everything," he said. "The government is incapable of doing anything to protect them. What future do non-Muslims have in countries where violence reins!"