Praying for the Persecuted Church in Lent - Iraq

Many churches in Iraq have been bombed and set on fire by Islamists who are trying to “cleanse” the country of its Christians

Despite the fact that the Christians, as ethnic Assyrians, are the indigenous people of Iraq, the Muslim Arab majority tend to see them as foreigners, in league with the “Christian” West. Neither the Iraqi government nor the coalition troops seem willing and able to protect the Christians. As a result of this persecution the Christian population of Iraq has declined from 1.5 million in 1990 to perhaps as low as 400,000 today, as huge numbers have fled to neighbouring countries.

In the last six months, Iraqi Christians have suffered waves of coordinated bomb attacks at churches across the country. In July 2009, at least six Baghdad churches and one in Mosul were damaged in explosions over a three-day period. Between 26 November and 23 December 2009, a spate of bombings across Iraq included five churches in Mosul and a Christian neighbourhood of Baghdad.

In late 2009, a compromise was reached in an ongoing power struggle over the representation of the main ethnic groups in Iraq’s parliament. But only a small number of seats have been allocated to Christians.