Christians in Iraq are under serious threat from militant Islamists and the deteriorating security situation. Ongoing violence has caused many to flee their homes, with many more considering doing so.
Three of Iraq's most prominent Christian leaders attended a summit in Brussels to call on the European Union to do more to address the plight of one of the world's oldest Christian communities.
Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako, Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Mosul Yohanna Petros Mouche and Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Kirkuk Youssif Mirkis flew to Brussels on Wednesday to meet with top EU officials including European Union President Herman van Rompuy. They spoke passionately about the threats their communities face daily and asked for assistance in preserving their communities.
Patriarch Sako drew attention in particular to the plight of two Chaldean nuns and three orphans who are believed to have been kidnapped by the Islamic State (formerly ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) from an orphanage in northern Iraq on June 28.
The three sects of Christianity represented by the leaders are affiliated with the Catholic Church, but retain their own rites and practices. Many of them still worship in Aramaic, as they have for the last 2,000 years.
Patriarch Sako said "Europeans have a moral duty vis-à-vis Iraq." The three leaders explained Iraqi Christianity's long history and lamented the uncertainty of its future. "The next days will be very bad" said Sako "If the situation does not change, Christians will be left with just a symbolic presence in Iraq. If they leave, their history is finished."
Yohanna Petros Mouche, the Archbishop of Mosul, a city now in the hands of the Islamic State, said that many Christians fled Mosul when the Islamist army descended on the city. Those who attempted to return "found no water, hardly electricity" he said. "There's only fear."
The Islamic State has been consolidating its rule and crushing all dissenters. At the end of June, they executed 13 Sunni clerics who refused to accept their rule.
Before the arrival of the Islamic State, many Christians had fled from persecution and sectarian violence north, to the Ninevah plain. Christians in Iraq view the Nineveh plain as their ancestral homeland. Many of them claim to be descendants of the original Assyrians, who once had an empire in the region based around their capital city of Nineveh.
Christians have continued to flee Mosul and the surrounding areas since the arrival of ISIS. The American based organization Christian Solidarity International (CSI) is cooperating with the Assyrian group Hammurabi Human Rights Organization to provide aid to Christian refugees from the Islamic State.
One Christian city, Hamdaniya, 20km from Mosul was shelled by the Islamic State without warning. Marwa, an eyewitness told CSI, "The shelling started at 3 p.m. on Wednesday (June 25), when I was looking after the children. I'd been very nervous since ISIS took Mosul, but the shelling started without warning. The shells landed every thirty minutes, and the Kurds were returning fire. We stayed up all night and left at 7 a.m. on Thursday. Most of the people left before us. We have no idea why this happened, or what has become of our home."
Almost all of the city's 50,000 people fled.
Reverend Dr. Andrew White is chaplain of St. George's Anglican Church in Baghdad. As part of his e-newsletter, he sent out an appeal to his supporters in England and to Christians around the world to support Iraq's community in light of the deteriorating situation.
"The Iraqi army is surrounding Baghdad and shots can be heard from St. George's church every night." he said "The situation is so dire, and we need help more than ever."
"Iraq is where Christianity started in the very beginning and Christians are now being persecuted. Numerous churches have been burnt down, and countless Christians have been forced to flee or killed. Even Christian graves are being desecrated and knocked over. The hatred is hard to understand."
He described the difficulties in helping the dispossessed caused by the sheer volume of refugees. "We are trying to help some of the families that have fled to Erbil in northern Iraq, but the need is just so great it is difficult. People are left with nothing but the clothes they were wearing."
Before the 2003 war, Iraq had a population of around 1.2 million Christians. Now there are 300,000.
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