Christians around the world are urged to join in a prayer vigil for Iraq, where the Church is facing extinction as believers under intense persecution are being forced to flee...

 The call follows the second annual All-Iraqi Christian Leadership Conference on June 26, where 76 Iraqi Christian leaders issued an appeal to the government to help the country’s dwindling minority community to survive.

The Church is on the brink of extinction in Iraq as persecution forces Christians to flee to neighbouring countries. The Christian population of Iraq has declined rapidly from 1.5 million in 1990 to perhaps as low as 400,000 today with many who remain internally displaced and discriminated against.

Over 95 per cent of Iraq’s population is Muslim and extremists want to “cleanse” the country of any trace of Christianity – despite the fact that the Christians, as Assyrians, are the indigenous people of the land. 

Christians are being raped, kidnapped and murdered while church buildings are targeted.

A report published in June 2010 by Minority Rights Group International’s partner in Iraq, Iraqi Minorities Organisation, highlighted the frequent bombings, torture, arbitrary arrest, intimidation, displacement and marginalisation facing Iraq’s cultural and religious minorities. Christians have been virtually wiped out of the capital, Baghdad, as well as the southern city of Basra, with many forced to flee as a result of attacks and intimidation. Figures for November 2009 show that just 60 Christian families out of the several thousand originally from Baghdad remain. (Source: Barnabas Fund)