During roughly the last decade and a half, nearly 75 percent of the Iraqi Christian population fled the country.
The site Faithwire reports that since 2003, the Christian population in Iraq has dropped dramatically.
In an interview with Anadolu Agency (a news service), Iraqi MP and Christian lawmaker Josef Sleve said there were almost two million Christians in the country in 2003. However, the U.S.-led invasion that year led around 1.5 million believers to leave.
In addition, Sleve said many Christians left Iraq since 2003 because of terrorism and security issues. Right now, only a quarter of the two million Christians remain in the country.
Experts say that the Christian departure has sped up since the rise of ISIS.
Now that ISIS has been driven out from most of the places in Iraq that the militant group once occupied Fox News reports, Assyrian Christians are now preparing to return to their homeland.
The Nineveh Reconstruction Committee, which is supported by the Aid to the Church in Need, will start building the first 100 of the 13,000 houses in northern Iraq this month – May 2017.
male@ugchristiannews.com
