The German Press Agency (DPA) quoted German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s top adviser on immigration as saying in Berlin that members of Iraq’s ancient Christian minority were regularly being threatened by Islamist gangs. The official, Maria Boehmer, confirmed reports that militants gave Christians families a choice of converting to Islam or leaving the country within 24 hours.
"In view of the serious human rights crisis in the region, rapid action is needed,” she said in remarks published by DPA. "The plight of the non-Muslim minorities which have fled to Jordan and Syria to get away from persecution is getting worse."
She urged Germany to receive refugees alone if an EU welcome were not quickly issued. Critics within the EU have said that helping Christians will discriminate against any Muslims who leave Iraq, but Boehmer, rejected that. "We have to start off by helping those whose plight is worst," she was quoted as saying.
GREEN PARTY
However an official of Germany’s Green party is among those criticizing Germany’s ruling coalition for being willing to take in Christians from Iraq, but not other refugees.
"We have to help everybody who is persecuted and cannot say these are our Christian brothers and sisters, and for others with a different identity we don’t care," Volker Beck said in comments aired by Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
Germany’s Catholic and Protestant agree but say they are are alarmed about rising sectarian violence being committed against Christians in Iraq amid reports of bombed churches, beheaded clergymen, and killings of women and children.
RELIGIOUS MINORITIES
Experts say the worst-off are religious minorities, unaccompanied women and children among refugees, who have no option of returning to Iraq, but also no way as refugees to earn a living.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that fewer than 25 per cent of the refugee children can attend school, and that young women are under huge pressure to enter prostitution, DPA reported. Iraq’s Christian communities date back to the time before Islam.
When the US-led invasion began there were at least some 750,000 Christians still in Iraq, but hundreds of thousands of them have since been forced to flee their homes, with many living in neighboring countries. Rights watchers have said that the very existence of the Christian minority, which has been settled in Iraq for some 2,000 years, is threatened. (With reporting from Iraq and Germany)
