Pak Christians fear attacks

Christmas in Gojra, where a tent camp houses Christians who lost their homes to a rampaging Muslim mob.

Christmas in Gojra, where a tent camp houses Christians who lost their homes to a rampaging Muslim mob, will be celebrated not with decorations and cheer but with fear of another attack.

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Those living in the canvas shelters after the worst violence against minorities in Pakistan this year left them homeless say they are still regularly harassed: Rocks are thrown at their camp at night, and they’ve been threatened by cell phone text messages promising a “special Christmas present.”

It was the fires that most traumatised Gojra’s Christian Colony, a neighbourhood in the heart of this Punjabi city about 350 kilometres southwest of Islamabad.

In August, hundreds of Muslims tore through the dirt streets, looting and torching homes as panicked residents tried to flee and thick black smoke rose into the air.

Eight Christians died — seven of them from one family trapped in a burning home.Christians — Protestants and Catholics among them — make up less than 5 per cent of Muslim-majority Pakistan’s 175 million people.