"Serial reluctance" to intervene by the UK government and other western powers has worsened the plight of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East, a damning report claims.
A cross-party coalition of senior politicians, including the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, has written to the Prime Minister this week urging her to support the world's oldest Christian civilisations. Their intervention comes after a joint report by 15 charities accused Theresa May of overseeing "very effective discrimination against those who have been the victims of genocidal violence".
In a startling letter sent to Number 10 this week, 13 MPs from across the major parties and nine peers co-signed a letter warning that without immediate help, "Christians and other minorities will be all but driven out of the Middle East".
They say "political correctness" has prevented aid agencies and governments from helping Christians and others religious minorities whose faith makes their status worse.
"The West (since the middle of last century) has been broadly unwilling to associate specifically with Christians.
"Furthermore, the Christian and other minority populations are not positively considered in the international humanitarian and development planning and are therefore missing out."
They add: "We hope that a political and humanitarian lifeline would now be extended to the Christians and other religious 'minorities' who are caught up in the terrible conflict throughout the Middle East."
As well as Lord Carey, the signatories include the crossbench peers Lord Alton and Baroness Cox as well as MPs from a rang of parties including Jeremy Lefroy, Conservative MP for Stafford, Keith Vaz, Labour MP for Leicester East, Gary Streeter, Conservative MP for South West Devon, Rob Flello, Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent South and Philippa Whitford, SNP MP for Central Ayreshire.
The letter was sent on Wednesday and is also signed by a host of faith leaders including heads of Orthodox, Catholic, Coptic and Armenian Churches.
It accompanies a report from an alliance of charities including Release International and Aid to the Church in Need that religious persecution is now extending into UNHCR camps, with Christians and other minorities facing attacks even once they reach the comparative safety of the UN-provided centres.
"This – in combination with a one-size-fits-all, 'need, not creed', non-discriminatory, approach has resulted, paradoxically, in very effective discrimination against those who have been the victims of genocidal violence at the hands of the faith-majority on both sides of the Sunni Shia divide," the report reads.
It continues: "Ongoing persecution coupled with serial reluctance by the western powers and the UN to recognise the specific vulnerabilities of these minorities has led to rapidly diminishing numbers and a realistic fear of the extinction of these faiths and their ancient cultures from the Middle East."
It called on Theresa May to make the Middle East's Christians and other minorities a priority and said the security in UNHCR camps must be reviewed and more non-Muslim staff employed to protect other faiths.
