The Annihilation of Iraq's Christian Minority

by Raymond Ibrahim  •  October 28, 2018 at 5:00 am

       

• "I'm proud to be an Iraqi, I love my country. But my country is not proud that I'm part of it. What is happening to my people [Christians] is nothing other than genocide... Wake up!" — Father Douglas al-Bazi, Iraqi Catholic parish priest, Erbil.
• "Contacting the authorities forces us to identify ourselves [as Christians], and we aren't certain that some of the people threatening us aren't the people in the government offices that are supposed to be protecting us." — Iraqi Christian man, explaining why Christians in Iraq do not turn to government authorities for protection.
• Government-sponsored school curricula present indigenous Christians as unwanted "foreigners," although Iraq was Christian for centuries before it was conquered by Muslims in the seventh century.

According to the "World Watch List 2018" report, Christians in Iraq -- the eighth-worst nation in the world in which to be Christian -- are experiencing "extreme persecution," and not just from "extremists." Pictured: A church that was burned and destroyed in the predominantly Christian town of Qaraqosh, Iraq. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

"Another wave of persecution will be the end of Christianity after 2,000 years" in Iraq, an Iraqi Christian leader recently said. In an interview earlier this month, Chaldean Archbishop Habib Nafali of Basra discussed how more than a decade of violent persecution has virtually annihilated Iraq's Christian minority. Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the Christian population has dropped from 1.5 million to about 250,000 -- a reduction of 85%. During those 15 years, Christians have been abducted, enslaved, raped and slaughtered, sometimes by crucifixion; a church or monastery has been destroyed about every 40 days on average, said the archbishop.

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