The Christian communities helping to heal Iraq’s wounds

Iraq remains a dangerous and difficult place for everyone there but especially for its religious and ethnic minorities.  Assassinations, kidnappings for ransom, expulsions from villages and towns of whole communities and illegal occupation of properties remain common throughout the country.

The Ecumenical delegation of bishops, which went to Iraq recently, as guests of the Chaldean Catholic Church, heard horrendous stories of people being frog-marched out of their houses, villages and towns, their property confiscated by ‘Islamic State’ or simply taken over by erstwhile neighbours.  Women and children are missing and many of the younger men were simply murdered.

The refugees are at pains to point out that the story of their woes precedes, by many years, the evil advent of Isis.  Since 2003, Islamic extremists have been blowing up churches, kidnapping clerics, looting shops and attacking Christian, Yazidi and Shabak homes more or less with impunity.

It would be very easy simply to be overwhelmed by these tales, as well as by the present state of refugees in Iraq, Kurdistan, Turkey, Jordan and further afield.