Society for Threatened Peoples and representatives of Iraqi minorities welcome new arrivals at the Friedland camp

Together with the Archbishop of the Syrian Orthodox diocese in Germany, Dr. Mor Julius Hanna Aydin, and representatives of the Iraqi minorities living in Germany workers of the international human rights organisation from the human rights organisation in the university town visited the camp on Wednesday to hold the final talks with the camp administration before the arrival of the refugees. Many of the refugees are likely to belong to the ethnic or religious minorities like the Christian Assyrian Chaldeans, the Mandaeans or the Kurdish Yezidi, who are being mercilessly persecuted in Iraq.

The GfbV took the initiative many years ago, calling for the admittance of at least 30,000 Assyrian Chaldean Christians and Mandaeans. After much hesitation and a personal discussion with the Chair of the Council of the EKD, Bishop Wolfgang Huber, the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) joined in this demand. The capacity for admittance for the minorities in the only region of Iraq which is safe, the autonomous federal state of Kurdistan in the north of the country, has now been exhausted. It is there that some 100,000 members of the ethnic group which is most threatened by the Islamist fanatics have found refuge.

The decision of the German ministers of the interior in November 2008 to admit 2500 refugees from Iraq was welcomed by the GfbV, though it was emphasised that this was just a "drop in the ocean”. The situation of the Christian Assyrian Chaldean Aramaeans, Mandaeans and Yezidi who fled to Syria and Jordan is desperate. Figures provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) show that at least 60,000 Iraqi refugees must be seen as cases of exceptional hardship, who have no chance of returning to Iraq.

The GfbV , which documents in detail the terror of expulsion practised by Islamist fanatics against minorities, estimates that there are at least 200,000. In sum total the EU countries intend to grant refuge to 10,000 refugees from Iraq, especially the persecuted Christians.