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Church bomb attacks leave four dead in Baghdad

At least four have been killed and 32 wounded in bomb attacks on six Baghdad churches in 24 hours.

The deadliest attack came on Sunday evening at around 7 pm near a church on Palestine Street in eastern Baghdad. A police officer at the scene said three Christians and one Muslim were killed. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, the Associated Press reports.

According to CNN, the first bombing took place on Saturday night at St Joseph's church in western Baghdad. Two bombs placed inside the church exploded at about 10 pm. No one was in the church at the time of the attack.

Bombs explosion followed on Sunday afternoon outside two churches in central Baghdad's al-Karrada district and one in al-Ghadeer in eastern Baghdad, wounding eight civilians, the official said. In southern Baghdad's Dora district, a bomb outside a church wounded three other civilians.

Most of the churches were damaged in the bombings, according to video footage posted on CNN website.

Iraq's Christians, believed to number about one million, are a small minority in a mainly Muslim country of about 28 million people. Christians have been the target of sporradic attacks, particularly in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul, leading many of them to flee abroad.

In October, more than a thousand Iraqi families fled the northern city of Mosul after a series of killings and threats by Muslim extremists, who apparently ordered them to convert to Islam or face possible death. At least 14 Christians were killed in Mosul in the first two weeks.

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