By Samuel Smith, The Christian Post. As conflicts in Iraq and Syria have forced millions of residents to flee their homes over the last several years, a leading Christian persecution activist has explained that over 80 percent of Christians have left Iraq in the last 13 years, while nearly half of all Christians have fled Syria since 2010.
Before the United States military went into Iraq in 2003, captured dictator Saddam Hussein, and opened up a power vacuum, Iraq was home to about 1.5 million Christians. But after sectarian violence commenced and the brutal Islamic State terrorist organization rose to power in 2014, fewer than 300,000 remain.
Meanwhile, in neighboring Syria, civil war has ravaged the country over the last five years and the rise of IS (also known as ISIS or ISIL) inside the country has compounded problems, thus creating one of the worst refugee crises in the 21st century.
Prior to the mass exodus from Syria over the last five years, Christians comprised about 10 percent of Syria’s population.
In a recent interview with the British news outlet Premier, Lisa Pearce, the CEO of Open Doors U.K. and Ireland, explained that the Christian population in Syria is only half of what it was in 2010. Additionally, she said that only about 17 percent of the Christians who lived in Iraq before the start of the Iraq War remain.
“Since the war began in Syria, about half of the Christians have fled the country,” Pearce, the head of one of the most prominent Christian persecution watchdog groups in the world, said. “In Iraq since 2003, five out of six Christians have left because they have completely given up hope of a future there.”