Dwindling Iraqi Christians is a disaster!

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — A car bomb outside Holy Family Syrian Catholic Church wounded 23 people Tuesday, August 2, 2011, as security forces found and disabled other vehicles packed with explosives outside two other churches in northern Iraq.  Photo: Emad Matti / AP

Iraq’s vanishing Christians
One church leader is pointing the finger at the West to explain the disappearance of Iraq’s Christians, writes Salah Nasrawi

Ahram.org - As the mass exodus of Iraq’s Christians continues, so does the call for ending the plight of those who have remained. Like Iraq’s ancient Jewish community before them, one of the world’s oldest Christian communities may soon cease to exist.

The disappearance of Iraq’s religious minorities has been a troubling trend since the US-led invasion in 2003, and it has threatened to end the cultural diversity of Iraq. As the violence in the country spikes and religious intolerance grows, many Christians, Yazidis, Mandaeans and other minority community members are leaving the country.

Last week, the head of the Iraqi Catholic Church sent a chilling warning that Iraq’s 2,000-year-old Christian community is on the brink of extinction as new waves of Christians take the journey of exodus.

The exodus is largely blamed on the worsening security since the US-led invasion that toppled former president Saddam Hussein’s regime. Christians have suffered abuses by Muslim extremists and militias, including brutal attacks, death threats and forcible seizure of property.

But Chaldean patriarch Louis Sako now believes that intervention by the West in the region has exacerbated the problem by producing more chaos and conflict in the war-ravaged country, and it is this that has been driving Christians to flee.