Christian Population in This Country Has Declined by 1 Million Since 2002

. . .”We have a proverb,” Athra Kado told the Washington Free Beacon. “I will not believe it unless I see it with my own eyes.”

Kado is from Alqosh, a town in the Nineveh Plains of Iraq. He leads Alqosh’s branch of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, a political party advocating for Assyrian rights in Iraq. He also directs the media center for the Nineveh Plain Protection Units, a military force allied with the Iraqi government that provides security in the southern region of the Nineveh Plains for predominantly Christian communities.

Fewer than 250,000 Christians are estimated to still live in Iraq, a decline of approximately one million people since 2002. Most live in the Nineveh Plains and Iraqi Kurdistan Region. . .

Rebuilding efforts have begun, but progress is slow and uneven. The Nineveh Reconstruction Committee states that over eight thousand families have returned to the Nineveh Plains—still less than half of the number of families living there prior to 2014. Moreover, less than 40 percent of all properties have been rebuilt.

In some places, few Christians have returned. Only two families have come back to the town of Batnaya. Ines San Martin of Crux reported that “there’s virtually nothing to go back to, raising the question of why any of its former residents would ever want to return.” (Read more from “Christian Population in This Country Has Declined by 1 Million Since 2002” HERE)

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