News

Iraq’s Christians flee in the face of lawlessness and sectarianism

February 3, 2020

The persecution of Christians in Iraq is ongoing. ISIS has largely been driven out of northern Iraq, where most of that nation’s Orthodox Christians lived up until the upheaval of the last two decades, but this has not led to relief for Iraq’s Christians. On top of the new threat to Christians from Shia “Popular Mobilization Units,” there is now a move to place Islamic legal scholars on Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court, and giving them effective veto power. This would make Iraq a virtual Sharia state and gravely imperil the legal standing of the nation’s Christians in areas where Christian practice differs from the strictures of Islamic law.

An internationally protected safe zone for the Christians of Iraq is urgently needed. Please continue to pray for the Christians of Iraq, and that these Iranian-backed Shia militias, on top of every other group that has targeted the Christians, will not succeed in bringing about the extinction of Christianity in that nation.

For previous ChristianPersecution.com coverage of the persecution of Christians in Iraq, click here.

“Iraq’s Christians flee in the face of lawlessness and sectarianism,” by Colin Freeman, Telegraph, February 2, 2020:

With armed police outside and CCTV cameras within, St Joseph’s Chaldean Catholic Church in Baghdad does its best to protect its worshippers from the dangers of modern-day Iraq.

But as the rows of empty pews show, most of its congregation have opted for altogether safer sanctuary abroad. Of the 5,000 families that the church once tended to, only 150 now remain after a mass migration in the last decade to Europe and America.

“They feel there is no peace, law or justice here in Baghdad, and that our country has become a land of militias,” said Father Nadheer Dako, St Joseph’s parish priest, after a Sunday morning service that drew just 25 people to a church built for 1,000….