"Particularly in Iraq, the homeland of so many of the Assyrian faithful, Christian families and communities are feeling increasing pressure from insecurity, aggression and a sense of abandonment," the pontiff said during an audience at the Vatican with the patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East.

He spoke amid reports that two unidentified Christians were killed Tuesday, June 19, in the Nour district of the northern city of Mosul, the same area where on June 3 Chaldean Catholic priest Ragheed Ganni and three assistants were murdered.

In the same region, an unidentified group also kidnapped two men of Batnaya origin, suggesting they may be Christians. The kidnappers already demanded a ransom for their release, Catholic AsiaNews agency said.

ANOTHER ATTACK

The killings and kidnapping were followed by an attack Wednesday, June 20, on a bus carrying some 50 Christian students and teachers returning home from an exam in Mosul, BosNewsLife monitored.  

Catholic church sources and police in Iraq said gunmen of an unknown group forced the bus to stop and abducted seven students and one professor at gunpoint. It was not immediately clear what kind of demands were made by the kidnappers. 

The abduction of the Christians took place near Mosul in the Nineveh plains-- the site of a proposed "protected enclave" for the Christian minority. Chaldean Catholic leaders have reportedly objected to that plan, saying it would remove Christians from Iraqi society and make them more vulnerable to concentrated attacks.

FEW CHRISTIANS 

Christians currently make up just 3 percent of Iraq's 26 million people, according to estimates, but an increasing number of believers are fleeing.

On Thursday, June 21, Pope Benedict XVI expressed concerns about the future of the major Christian groups, including Chaldean-Assyrians and Armenians, with small numbers of Roman Catholics.

"Many of them see no other possibility than to leave the country and to seek a new future abroad," he said. "These difficulties are a source of great concern to me, and I wish to express my solidarity with the pastors and the faithful of the Christian communities who remain there, often at the price of heroic sacrifices."

US SOLDIERS KILLED

Themselves in the crossfire, American forces have been unable to protect Christians and stop the exodus. On Thursday, June 21, the military announced the deaths of 14 US troops in Iraq, including five soldiers killed by a single roadside bomb in Northeast Baghdad.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Lee Packnett in Baghdad told the website of American network CBS that the blast also left three Iraqi troops and an interpreter dead.

Christians have been accussed by Muslim militants of supporting the US-led coalition in Iraq and Thursday's violence seemed another indication that more Iraqi believers would flee the country, joining thousands already staying in neighboring countries such as Jordan and Syria. (With BosNewsLife's Stefan J. Bos and reporting from Iraq).