Iraqi Christians flee homes amid militant push

Herald Standard ^ | June 16, 2014

[Citizen Zed]

Iraq was estimated to have more than 1 million Christians before the 2003 invasion and topping of Saddam Hussein. Now church officials estimate only 450,000 remain within Iraq borders. Militants have targeted Christians in repeated waves in Baghdad and the north. The Chaldean Catholic cardinal was kidnapped in 2008 by extremists and killed. Churches around the country have been bombed repeatedly.

The exodus from Mosul — a Sunni-majority city that during the American presence in Iraq was an al-Qaida stronghold — has been even more dramatic. From a pre-2003 population of around 130,000 Christians, there were only about 10,000 left before the Islamic State fighters overran the city a week ago.

Abu Zeid estimated that now only 2,000 Christians remain in the city.

"They see no future there," said George Demacopoulos, the director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at the Jesuit-run Fordham University in New York.

"There is no short-term solution," he said in a phone interview. "I think the only prescription for a long-term solution is a kind of political stabilization of the region that is enabled without military force."

Christians who have not left Iraq completely often flee their homes to other parts of Iraq when the danger is highest in hopes of returning later.

Boutani, the mayor, said this was the sixth time in 11 years that Christians from other areas have flocked to Alqosh for refuge. He himself fled here from Baghdad in 2009 after a church bombing in the capital.

[Fitzy_888]

Even ISIS probably won’t condone rape and taking of booty from Shiite’s...but anything goes with respect to Christians. /...that’s caustically cynical, but probably not far off the mark.

[Patton@Bastogne]

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This Free Republic post ("America's Islamic Jihad") is written by Patton-at-Bastogne, a Free Republic member since 1998.


The purpose is to provide Information Resources about "America's Islamic Jihad".


Specifically, I'm providing an internet link to an incredible Youtube video that I recently discovered ...

Youtube Video : Why We Are Afraid if Islam : Dr. Bill Warner (click here)



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This isn't an attempt to promote a third-party blog or website, and certainly not an attempt to invite the Free Republic audience to purchase anything.

Rather, it's just an attempt to educate.
















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