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Syria: Christians in mass exodus from Homs


more peaceful times

more peaceful times

Almost the entire Christian population of the Syrian city of Homs has fled violence and persecution - and Aid to the Church in Need is providing emergency aid to help them.

The mass exodus of 50,000 or more people to villages and towns around the city comes amid reports that the homes of Christians in Homs have been attacked and seized by 'fanatics'.

Aid to the Church in Need, which is today (Monday) announcing an urgent £67,000 aid package providing food and shelter, has been told that 90 percent of Christians have left Homs. The exodus has mostly taken place within the past six weeks and is part of what respected news sources describe as an "ongoing ethnic cleansing of Christians" by militant Islamic groups with links to Al Qaeda.

Until now, Homs has been home to one of Syria's largest Christian populations. Church sources have said the faithful have borne the brunt of the violence, escaping to villages many of them in mountains 30 miles outside the city. Islamists have reportedly gone from house to house in the city's Hamidiya and Bustan al-Diwan neighbourhoods, forcing Christians to leave without giving them a chance to take their belongings.

According to other reports, Christians have left their homes voluntarily, in effect making way for others to occupy them to shelter from the violence. Desperate for food and shelter, the displaced people taking sanctuary in the Wadi Alnasara region, as well as Marmarita and other villages, are to receive aid as part of Aid to the Church in Need's aid programme.

The assistance will provide each family with about £40 each month for basic food and lodging, with the hope that by the summer they can return home.

Aid to the Church in Need is also helping families caught up in a car bomb explosion last Sunday (18 March) which targeted the Christian quarter of Aleppo, close to the Franciscan-run Church of St Bonaventure.

Overseeing the aid programme, Bishop Antoine Audo SJ of Aleppo told Aid to the Church in Need: "The people we are helping are very afraid."

Speaking today (Monday, 26th March) from Aleppo, the bishop added: "The Christians don't know what their future will hold. They are afraid they will not get their homes back.

"It is very important that we do whatever we can to help the people."

In his application for aid, the bishop stated: "Please speed up the implementation of the project because of the difficult circumstances that Christians face in Syria."

The bishop, who heads Aleppo's Chaldean diocese, paid tribute to Aid to the Church in Need benefactors, adding: "Thank you for helping us. Pray for us and let us work together to build peace in Syria."

His comments come as fears grow of Syria becoming a "second Iraq", following a similar pattern of church attacks and forced expulsion and kidnapping of Christians.

If the attacks continue, Syria could suffer the same fate as Iraq where Christians have plummeted from 1.4 million in the late 1980s to perhaps less than 300,000 today.

In both cases, the Church has been targeted for perceived close links with regimes under fire from opposition parties and rebel groups.

The Homs crisis has prompted increased fears that Islamists are gaining influence in the region, filling the power vacuum left when decades-old regimes across the Middle East were overthrown at the start of the so-called Arab Spring.

Source: ACN

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