Aram, who had been a member of the Armenian Orthodox Church in Baghdad, said: "My wife and I knew some Christians who were killed. As our numbers were on their mobile phones, their murderers used them to call and threaten us."
Aram also told about the mistrust that is poisoning communities in Iraq: "We had some friends, who turned out to work for the Mahdi Army. We thought they were friends, but they took our pictures in order to have us killed."
Incidents such as the publishing of the prophet Muhammad cartoons in Denmark in 2005 benefit the extremists, who use them to justify their hidden agenda to kick "non-believers" out of the country, Munir from the Calvinist community in Baghdad is convinced.
"My family was threatened: either you leave within 15 minutes or we will kill you," Munir described his own experience. He added that they did not know how serious the threat was, so they went to his sister's apartment next door and waited. Then an armed gang arrived.
"They raped our wives, and even my eighty-year-old mother was beaten." After Munir's brother-in-law, who had been kidnapped, was freed, the family left "immediately, without even taking any clothes with us", selling the apartment for a quarter of its value.
In exile, Christians turn to churches for help
But life in Syria is not easy, either, as the resources which refugees managed to bring with them are soon used up, and jobs are hard to find.
"I have a brother and a sister outside the region," Munir said. "We depend on them and are a burden on them. But they cannot afford to send us money all the time."
A psychological burden for many families is the knowledge that any emergency or illness will find them without protection. Kwarin, a father of four, left his job with a security company in Baghdad to join his family in exile and take care of his children. "My wife urgently needs an operation," he said, "but I have no money to pay for it."
