Iraq's Dwindling Christians Wonder If It's Time To Leave Iraq : NPR

by Leila Fadel, June 18, 2014

About 20 miles outside the embattled northern Iraqi city of Mosul lies the Christian village of Al-Qoush. It's taken in about 2,000 residents from Mosul who fled after the militant Islamist group ISIS captured that city.

In recent days, news coverage from Iraq has focused largely on the Sunni-Shiite divide in that country. But Iraq is also home to a Christian community, which traces its origins in the earliest days of Christianity.

During a visit to Al-Qoush, a village of low stone homes and churches at the foot of a mountain, we met with members of the committee that oversees displaced people.

The committee was formed in 2008 when Christians were fleeing Mosul after a spate of killings that targeted and terrified the community. More than 260 families fled here. In 2010, it happened again, and again Christian families came here or sought safe haven in other Christian villages in the Nineveh plains.

But this time, after ISIS took over Mosul, and vowed in a charter to destroy shrines and monuments that go against their extreme version of Islam, the bulk of the displaced that came to al-Qoush are Muslim.

Only about 40 Christian families arrived in al-Qoush. It is a sign of just how few Christians are left in Iraq — and in Mosul in particular.

It's a trend that's reflected across the region: In the mid-20th century, Christians were estimated to be about 20 percent of the Middle East's population. Today, it's 5 percent at most.


Read the full article with pictures here: Iraq's Dwindling Christians Wonder If It's Time To Leave Iraq : NPR