ICC Note:
Members of Parliament warn that Iraqi Christians who fled ISIS are at risk of being pushed out of the Middle East by militant forces backed by Iran. Officials are calling for an increase of targeted assistance to help Christians resettle their communities. H.R. 390, the Iraq and Syria Genocide Emergency Relief and Accountability Act, would authorize this kind of assistance and help improve conditions on the ground. Despite intense persecution, many Christians are eager to return home and begin cultivating a new life among their countrymen.
08/22/2017 Iraq (Christianity Today) – The US and UK governments are failing to support Iraqi Christians, leaving them vulnerable to be squeezed out of their homes, MPs have said.
Iraqi Christians who fled after their homes were overridden by ISIS are at risk of being pushed out the Middle East altogether by a combination of Shia and Sunni forces moving in, they warn.
In a letter to the British development secretary Priti Patel, several MPs alongside charity heads and religious freedom campaigners say unless funding is immediately provided to rebuild Christian villages and homes on Iraq’s Nineveh Plains, ‘most Iraqi Christians who escaped ISIS to Kurdistan are likely to leave Iraq permanently’.
Signed by the Catholic peer Lord Alton as well as Labour’s faith envoy Stephen Timms and Second Church Estates Commissioner Dame Caroline Spelman alongside others, the letter says: ‘We note that DFID were able to allocate significant emergency funds for the support of residents from Mosul, and the rebuilding of the same, but nothing has been allocated to date for the many thousands of Christians and Yazidis who lost their homes 3 years ago (including in Mosul) and who are now faced with a grave humanitarian and existential crisis.’
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