Paul KeenanPoliticians and Church leaders have united to condemn the widespread silence from the Irish media and Government about the ethnic cleansing of Iraq’s ancient Christian community.
As the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) tightened its control of the northern city of Mosul this week, ordering the last remaining Christians to convert or flee, Fianna Fáil’s Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Brendan Smith told The Irish Catholic of his “deep disappointment” with the lack of an Irish response to the community’s suffering.
“What is happening in Northern Iraq is appalling,” Mr Smith said. “ISIS is engaged in very straightforward, brutal, but largely unreported ethnic cleansing.
“Northern Iraq was home to one of the oldest Christian communities on earth, with Mosul having been a centre of Christianity for almost 2,000 years. Today, under death threats, the Christian community has fled in what has been described as the largest mass flight of Christians in the Middle East since the Armenian massacres and the expulsions of Christians from Turkey after the First World War,” he said.
Having raised the issue of Iraq’s Christian community with Government, Mr Smith said that he had been left “deeply disappointed by the Government’s apparent disinterest in what is happening. Sectarian displacement on this scale should be a cause for much greater concern for policy makers across Europe than it has been to date. I would like to see Ireland taking a lead role in moving this situation further up the agenda at a European level.”
Mr Smith’s words come as the leader of Iraq’s Chaldean Christian community, Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako issued an impassioned letter to the international community warning that all of Iraq is now facing a “human, civil, and historic catastrophe” as a result of the unchecked gains made by ISIS.
Echoing Mr Smyth’s concerns, Reform Alliance TD Terence Flanagan said the persecution of Christians in Iraq “is an ongoing issue that is cause for concern”. He called on the Minister for Foreign Affairs to “ensure that Ireland is “playing its part in putting a stop to the persecution” of Iraqi Christians.
Bishop John McAreavey of Dromore described news from Iraq as “truly shocking and heart-breaking”.
“Persecution of some Christian communities in Iraq has reached new levels and for the first time it is reported that there are no longer Christians in the city of Mosul,” he said.
Bishop McAreavey appealed to the international community “not to tolerate the denial of basic human rights and to protect the safety of those trapped in the conflict zones”.