UN raps Sweden for deporting Iraqi Christians

(December 21, 2010) The United Nations last Friday criticized Sweden for deporting five Iraqi Christians back to their homeland as Iraq's Christian community comes under severe threat of militant attacks. Thousands of Iraqi Christians have fled abroad or to the relative safety of Iraq's northern Kurdish region since an Oct. 31 siege on a Catholic church in Baghdad that was taken hostage during Sunday Mass by suicide bombers who ultimately killed over 50 people. The U.N.'s High Commission for Refugees said the five deported Christians were part of a group of at least 20 Iraqis who failed to gain asylum in Sweden and were flown out last Wednesday. In a release on Friday, the refugee agency said it was “dismayed” over the deportation and called on countries to take in Iraqis from Baghdad, Kirkuk and three northern provinces that the U.N. considers unsafe because of repeated attacks, sectarian tensions and human rights violations. “We have heard many accounts of people fleeing their homes after receiving direct threats,” said Melissa Fleming, a Geneva-based spokeswoman for the U.N. agency. “Many of the new arrivals explain they've left in fear as a result of the church attack on Oct. 31.”