Iraq: Society for Threatened Peoples fears a new refugee wave of Christians

Following coordinated bomb attacks on six Christian churches of various denominations in the Northern Iraqi town of Kirkuk and in Baghdad by Islamist fanatics the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) fears that there will now be a new mass flight of Iraqi Christians to the Kurdish north of the country and into the neighbouring countries.

Target of the attacks were churchgoers wanting to attend the Sunday services. In Kirkuk the bomb attacks at three churches in the north and the centre of the town killed at least three people, among hem a 13-year old boy and more than ten were injured. In Baghdad five attacks on four churches resulted in more than 12 injured. Dozens of Christian students of the Technical University of Baghdad and of the University of Mosul were the victims of violent attacks by Islamist fellow-students. They were beaten and abused as infidels and as American agents.

Similar incidents have already been the cause of several waves of refugees. The President of the Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, has already offered the Assyrian-Chaldean population admission to the three Kurdish provinces. The Kurdish part of the North Iraq is the safest and most stable region of the country, whose government actively supports the settling of the Christian minority. Thus 30 new villages have been built for them, together with roads and the provision of water and drainage. Medical care has also been guaranteed.

The GfbV calls on the German government to give financial support to these programmes for the settling of Christian refugees in Kurdish North Iraq and to press for the sponsoring of these programmes on the level of the European Union, so that the Christian refugees receive a new perspective for their future without having to leave the country.

Some 3,500 Assyrian-Chaldean families, which means more than 18,000 people, have already fled to the Kurdish north. 350 families came alone in the last month. Some 50,000 Christians fled to Syria. Every day new Christian families become refugees.