MID EAST CHRISTIANS

[HagiaSophia]

Fellow Christians need our prayers – this news report indicates their dwindling numbers in the mid east – “At one time there were a million Christians in Iraq. There are now about about 650,000, making up about three per cent of the population. The main communities are Chaldean Catholics, Assyrian, Armenian, Syrian Orthodox and Syrian Catholic…”

indcatholicnews.com/iqbm.html

I have also put a brief eyewitness news report of the terrorist bombings in Iraq in the Misc.Section

 

[CMcLaurin]

Terrible indeed, our Eastern Brethren are suffering. ( Bump )

 

[Salvo]

I agree. I think it’s crude how so many people blindly supported the Iraqi war thinking they were “gonna bomb them Muslims” and had no idea that they were bombing Christians as well.

Incidentally, do you remember the story of the woman and her family that were fired upon by the Americans at a checkpoint at the begining of the war? It turns out she and her entire family were Chaldean Christians. Her entire family, sons, husband, parents etc were all killed. Now there’s 8 less Christians in Iraq.

 

[Ghosty]

Ironically the war also opened up the country for the present attacks on Christians (who are almost all Catholic and Orthodox). Saddam’s regime, while definately terrible, also protected the Christians to a great degree, allowing them a place in the government and harshly punishing any persecution of them. Now fundamentalist Muslims are lashing out against them in the wake of Saddam’s absence.

 

[HagiaSophia]

Salvo:

I agree. I think it’s crude how so many people blindly supported the Iraqi war thinking they were “gonna bomb them Muslims” and had no idea that they were bombing Christians as well…

Actually while I have heard that “said” it was not what I had heard from the inhabitants in that area of the world generally; not knowing any specific individual in Iraq, I held my opinion to myself but then there is this:

"…Secret documents found in Iraq reveal a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing by former President Saddam Hussein against indigenous Assyrian Christians living in northern Iraq.
According to the Rev. Ken Joseph Jr., a leader in the Assyrian Christian community, the documents tell of a “decades-long pattern” of persecution and “Islamization” by Saddam.

Writes Joseph in a column on AssyrianChristians.com:
“Entitled ‘The Settlements and Villages of the Christian Assyrians in the Region of Kurdistan Iraq,’ the document, which goes to 104 pages, is a shocking view of a previously mostly unknown campaign of terror against a tiny minority in Iraq.”

Joseph says 290 villages were named in the documentation with the word “destroyed” next to each one.
“The document with ‘Confidential For Internal Use Only’ and subtitled ‘The Contribution of the International Non-Governmental Organizations to the Islamization of Assyrian Villages’ goes into great detail on the destruction of the indigenous people of the region,” he writes. …"