Plight of Iraqi Christians

(July 12, 2011): Though the exodus of Christians from Iraq has been ongoing for several years, the international community is still largely unaware of the issue, which threatens to undermine peace in the entire region, said Joseph Kassab, the executive director of US-based Chaldean Federation.
He was speaking on Monday with the television program "Where God Weeps" of the Catholic Radio and Television Network (CRTN) in cooperation with Aid to the Church in Need.
Highlighting the plight of Iraqi Christians, he said, the number of Christians in Iraq before the 2003 war was more than 1.2 million. Now we have less than 300,000 in Iraq and the majority are internally displaced people seeking security in Northern Iraq, and another 300,000 to 400,000 are seeking asylum as refugees in neighboring countries such as Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and some of them are stranded in Europe.
According to him, one of the reasons for their displacement is because of the vicious violence committed against these people. The Christians have become a "soft target" for many reasons, one of which and the most important is: Christians do not carry arms. They do not have a militia to protect them. They do not have tribal people to help them.
According to him, the present situation is happening because the international community is not saying anything about it.
He said that during Saddam there was order but there was no law; now there is no law and no order. Saddam Hussain nationalized our Christian institutions and forbade Christian babies from being named with Biblical names. He also forced Christians to belong to the Ba'ath Party -- his party -- otherwise they were ordered to leave. But in terms of security issues, the Christians were better off at that time than today.