The church and Rahho's relatives had received ransom demands. All contact though had ceased a few days ago. On Thursday the kidnappers got in touch with relatives telling them where they could find the body of their family member. The body had bullet wounds.

The Chaldean order spokes Aramaic, the same language spoke during the time that Jesus lived. They converted to Christianity in the first century A.D. Part of the Roman Catholic Church the Chaldean branch has been in Iraq since the beginnings.

While Christians are a small fraction of the Iraqi population insurgents have targeted them and their religious sites in recent years.