While the refugees are grateful to Syria and the churches there for welcoming them, many feel let down by the international community. Frustration prevails with regard to the Western embassies who have rejected visa applications again and again. "Do they want that parents go back to Iraq and get killed before they allow the children to get out? Must our young women go back and be raped before they are allowed out?" one man asked angrily.
Cries of "No!" or even "Never!", both in English and Arabic, filled the room, as the question of whether they want to return to Iraq was put to the refugees. "Of course I want to go back to my country," a young woman from Basra explained. "But can you guarantee that I will not be killed? My relatives went back and were killed in one night."
Rev Dr Volker Faigle of the Evangelical Church in Germany thanked the men and women who gave their testimonies to the WCC delegation for the clear message. "We cannot bring airtickets or visas along," he acknowledged. "But my church and the Roman Catholic Church in Germany will join hands and approach the government, the parliament and the European institutions to tell them what we have seen and heard.
"When we return to our countries, we will think of you, we will pray for you and we will act for you."
The concern felt by Syria's Christian communities for their sisters and brothers in and from Iraq was tangible in all the encounters the WCC delegation had with church leaders.
Patriarch Mor Ignatius Zakka of the Syrian Orthodox Church, who was himself born in Iraq, told the ecumenical visitors about a priest of his church who had been killed just one week earlier, after he conducted the Holy Mass. "We do not want Iraq to be emptied of Christians but if they are in danger there, how could we tell them to stay?" asked the patriarch.
Many Christian refugees experienced that in Iraq belonging to a religious minority is dangerous. "Christians and other minorities are paying the price of the Iraq war," said Samer Laham, "because they are suspected of being traitors and of helping the allied forces - as if they were not an original part of the social fabric and had not shared the bread with their Muslim brothers since centuries. "
So when they arrive in the host country, Christians put most trust and expectations for help on the churches. Denominational boundaries, on the other hand, are easily overcome. "Our church is an open house for Iraqi either to hold their own services or to join ours," said the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregorios III. He added that his patriarchate works hand in hand with an Islamic centre to care for Iraqi refugees, whether they be Christian or Muslim.
Pastor Boutros Zaour, of the Evangelical National Church, said ,"It is Syria's destiny to be hospitable to refugees, ever since the Armenians fled here from the persecutions they suffered in the Ottoman Empire."
"The personal stories the delegation heard were heartwrenching," said Clare Chapman, deputy general secretary of the National Council of Churches USA, at the end of the visit.
"We must pray for the Iraqi refugees and work together as member churches of the WCC and as citizens of our home countries, to address the conditions they daily endure. We must take our responsibility seriously, as people of faith, to do whatever we can to support them as they try to rebuild the lives they lost through no fault of their own."
