The Church in Iraq
In Iraq the very survival of one of the world’s oldest Christian communities now hangs in the balance. Continuing attacks against the faithful have prompted successive waves of emigration. According to UN reports in 2010, of the 1.6 million Iraqi refugees abroad, up to 40 percent were thought to be Christians. According to some of the country’s most senior bishops, over the past decade the number of Christians haemorrhaged from nearly 900,000 to perhaps fewer than 200,000, a rate of decline far steeper than official figures suggest. By 2011, some sources gave an even lower figure for the number of Christians left in Iraq. Nor does there seem any end in sight to the problem, with Christian emigration continuing unabated. Catholic leaders said the number of Christians remaining in Baghdad by early 2011 would be a mere fraction of the 200,000 living there at the start of 2003. Even more Christians fled the city after the 31st October 2010 siege of Baghdad’s Our Lady of Salvation Syr