A church bombing halfway around the world altered Mariam Edwar’s holiday plans.

Edwar, a first-year international student from Baghdad, said she never felt a difference between Muslims and Christians in her country, but since being in the United States, recent events in Iraq have changed these feelings.

“After the attacks on the churches and the bombing of the church in Baghdad, Christians are pretty much targets in Iraq to al-Qaeda,” said Edwar, a Christian. “For me, I felt terrible after the attacks, because those people hadn’t done anything and they killed them, just because they’re Christian.”

Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad was attacked Oct. 31, and the bombing left 58 people dead and many more wounded.

“Because of the situation for Christians right now, or anyone who has been in the United States, my parents aren’t letting me go back because they’re afraid I might get hurt,” Edwar said.

As Americans leave Iraq, everyone expects instability and as there is instability, Christians will be the first ones to be effected, said Joshua Landis, OU’s Center of Middle East Studies director.

“The attacking of the church was a big blow to the Christian community because they were the targets,” Landis said.

Charles Kimball, religious studies program director, spent a great deal of his life in the Middle East and said there has been a lot of violence in Iraq since 2003, especially between the Shiite and Sunni people.

“What is triggering it now is not exactly clear,” Kimball said. “There are definitely still people in Iraq who want to see the peace disrupted and would do anything for it, even attacking churches. So the Christian community is in a very precarious position.”

The Christians, who lived in the Middle East long before Islam appeared on the scene, are still the minority group and it’s not surprising that many of them have left, Kimball said.

Edwar said she will spend her holiday break with family at her sister’s home in Minnesota.

“I will have a normal Iraqi Christmas,” Edwar said. “I’m so excited about the Iraqi food and getting to see my sister and her family, because I haven’t seen my sister in a year.”

Edwar said Christmas in Iraq is like Christmas in the United States.