Syria becomes refuge for Iraqi Christians

Iraqi Christians prayed in Syria during the Sunday service on 8th August, for those who were killed in the recent bombings in Baghdad and Mosul. On top of them, a banner was hung which read: "Aug. 7 will remain a symbol of honour for our people and their national identity".

7th August is the Martyr Day which commemorates the massacre by the Iraqi government of thousands of Christians demanding more rights in 1933. It is said that 3,000 people, including women and children, were killed in Simele, a town in northern Iraq.

Believers were praying together with troubled hearts, and were concerned that the recent violence would drive Iraqi Christians from their homeland.

Even before the church bombings, many Christians fled to Syria because of the harassment by Islamic fundamentalists. Syria's relaxed visa rules for Arabs and its geographical and cultural proximity to Iraq have attracted thousands of Iraqis, Muslims as well as Christians, who are all seeking to escape the chaos in their homeland.

The Iraqi Embassy in Damascus and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated the number of Iraqis of all faiths in Syria at about 250,000. Some 12,000 of these have registered with the UNHCR - of which 20 per cent are Christians. Yet Christians just make up three per cent of Iraq's population of about 25 million. The major Christian groups include Chaldean-Assyrians and Armenians.

"There is nothing worse than attacking churches," Benjamin Chamoun says, who is a member of the Chaldean-Assyrian church, the major Christian sect in Iraq.

"We, as Christians, are not persecuted by Muslims. Our problem is with Muslim extremists,"

Under Saddam, Christians were free to practice their religion and lived relatively peacefully among the Muslim majority. Some, like former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, even rose to prominence.

But since the fall of Saddam, Islamic extremism has been on the rise in Iraq in the chaos. Some trace this to the arrival of foreign Muslim militants drawn to Iraq by the chance to attack Americans.