Arbil, Iraq - Baghdad's brutal war between Shiite and Sunni armed groups has prompted an exodus by Iraq's non-Muslim religious minorities to the relative safety of the northern Kurdish provinces, or abroad.
Communities that have been part of Iraq's social fabric for centuries have been targeted both as infidels -- in the eyes of the Islamists who have come to dominate the Sunni insurgency -- and as easy prey for extortion.
The Mandaean community, which traces its origins in Iraq back to the 6th century BC, has found itself particularly vulnerable.
Largely displaced from its traditional homeland in the southern marshlands by the Shiite uprising that followed the 1991 Gulf war and the scorched earth response of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime, the community found a new base in Baghdad to practise its traditional trade as goldsmiths.
But the community's renown as workers of precious metal has proved its Achilles's heel amid the breakdown of law and order that followed the US-led invasion of 2003, with an array of armed groups seeing it as an easy target.
From a pre-war population in Iraq of some 70,000, community leaders now estimate there are less than 22,000 left in the country.
Many of those who remain have fled the war-torn capital for the relative safety of the Kurdish cities of the north.
Forty-four families have resettled in Arbil, the seat of Kurdish regional government, and another 12 families have relocated to Sulaimaniyah.
"The security and the stability in Arbil saved me from the tragedy of living in Baghdad, since there I could not go out fearing that I will be kidnapped for working in the gold business," said Sam Saad, 20.
Halim Kamal told a similar story.
"I gave up my job at a Baghdad hospital and I came to Kurdistan to work as a goldsmith since here I enjoy security and peace," said the 27-year-old, who used to work as a medical assistant in the capital.
A former head of the Mandaeans' community affairs council, Saadi Thujail, has also joined the exodus.
"We did not receive any direct threats since we are a peaceful people but the repercussions of terrorism have hit us," Thujail told AFP.
"Since we are a small and peaceful community and there is no one to provide us support, we were also a target for the gangs," he said.
"The majority of our young have migrated to Europe, Syria or Jordan."
Thujail said the Kurdish regional government had been very receptive to pleas for help from the community's leaders and hospitable to displaced Mandaeans.
"There were some meetings between our leader Abdul Sattar Helo and the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massud Barzani, in Baghdad recently in which they promised us some facilities to relocate in Arbil and Sulaimaniyah," he said.
Thujail, who brought with him to Arbil some of the staff of his Baghdad goldsmith's business, said there was no problem for Mandaeans in practising their ancestral craft in the Kurdish north.
"You see a Mandaean cannot give up his profession," he said. "I believe that Kurdistan is the best place to practise it with our families and offspring.
"Kurdistan consumes and imports gold, but if the government here encourages the Mandaeans who have a long history in this field, to bring in our workshops, new machinery and experience, this region will become a goldsmith hub and not a place of consumption."
Thujail acknowledged that relocation to Kurdistan posed some difficulties for Mandaeans in practising their ancient religion, which recognises some but not all of the key figures of the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
The faithful revere Adam, Noah and John the Baptist but not Abraham, Moses or Jesus.
As part of their reverence for John the Baptist, ritual cleansing in water forms a key part of their religion, and in Baghdad the community's main festivals were all held on the banks of the Tigris River, something that is not an option in riverless Arbil.
"As you know, necessity allows forbidden things to be done, and since Arbil is not near running water or rivers, then based on subjective decisions it is fine to resettle here," Thujail said.
The displaced community in Arbil also lacks a priest able to read the Mandeans' holy book, the Ginza Raba (The Great Treasure), in the original Mandaean language -- a dialect of Aramaic, the tongue of Jesus Christ.
Thujail said he had to rely on an Arabic-language translation of the holy text -- in Iraq, lay Mandaeans have lost their traditional language, unlike in neighbouring Iran, where a few hundred of the estimated 5,000 Mandaeans still speak the language.
"We want to maintain our religious rituals," he said, adding that the displaced community was awaiting the arrival of a priest and for the time being carrying out the rituals of the faith at home.