How an Iraqi Christian school became 82 percent Muslim

By Jane Arraf, Correspondent
November 9, 2010

Down a battered street in the working class neighborhood of New Baghdad, next to a Shiite mosque frequented by followers of hard-line cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, children play in the school courtyard of St. Elia Catholic Church.

This was once a mixed neighborhood, home to Sunnis, Shiites, and – before the war – 2,500 Christian families. But the particularly fierce ethnic violence that raged here engulfed everyone and left a mostly Shiite neighborhood surrounding the Catholic school and church. the rest

Sectarian violence and a Christian exodus has left Baghdad's St. Elia Catholic school largely surrounded by Muslims, who were drawn to the school's no-hitting rule.