World Watch Monitor, July 12, 2019
Iraq’s Christians want the West to say the plain truth.
“If we don’t say what is really happening in the region, which is ethnic cleansing of both Christians and Yazidis, we allow Islamic State and other perpetrators to get away with it,” says Tim Stanley, columnist, for The Telegraph.
IS fighters are still active and have, in recent weeks, torched hundreds of acres of land and crops, “owned by infidels”, in northern Iraq.
Iranian-backed militias have moved into areas previously held by IS, discouraging people to trade with Christians.
The UN has been reluctant to recognise the violence against Christians and Yazidis as genocide.
The US has sent an aid package of US $35 million to the region to support Iraqi Christians and Yazidis who had suffered under IS occupation.
Christians often are considered to be instruments of Western governments and, as such, a threat to national identity or security. The challenge, then, is to help Christians without exposing them to undue risk.