Roadside bomb explodes near entrance to Catholic church in Baghdad

A roadside bomb exploded near an entrance to a Catholic church in Baghdad on Easter Sunday, wounding two police officers and two civilians, an Interior Ministry source said.

The source was quoted by Reuters as saying that the blast struck a police vehicle providing security at the Sacred Heart church in Baghdad's central Karrada district.

Last October, 52 people died in an assault on a Syrian Catholic cathedral in central Baghdad. The attack was the bloodiest against Iraq's Christian minority since the 2003 US-led invasion.

Iraq's Christians once numbered about 1.5 million but are now believed to have fallen to less than 850,000 out of a population of 30 million.