Bible Society working among Iraqi Christians
Images of desperate refugees making perilous journeys and arriving in Europe have been playing across our screens for months now, along with debates on how best to help them. But many of the poorest and most desperate will never be able to leave their countries.
This is certainly the case for many of Iraq’s Christians, according to Dr Michael Bassous, who oversees Bible Society work in Lebanon and Iraq.
“The typical Iraqi Christian has, over the last 30 years, been displaced four or five times,” he says. “Many of them will never be able to leave Iraq, for financial reasons, or because they don’t have connections outside Iraq, so they have to remain there.”
Christians in Iraq have lived under increasing pressure since 2003, but the arrival of ISIS last year made their situation far worse. Tens of thousands of Christians were forced to flee to Iraqi Kurdistan, where they have been sheltering for months. At first the Bible Society and partners concentrated on meeting people’s immediate needs, providing them with food, mattresses, blankets and other material aid, and giving out Scriptures to all who needed them. But it is now also starting to offer Bible–based trauma healing.
“Let’s pray for the Iraqi Christian families. They have the potential to reach other refugee families because they’ve shared the same story. And because they’re people of hope… So let’s pray that they will rediscover that hope and they will continue to be witnesses for Christ in those very difficult circumstances.”
Watch Mike Bassous talking about the situation of Iraq’s Christian refugees.