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The Week in Germany: Current Affairs
April 18, 2008
Germany to Seek Europe's Backing on Plan for Iraqi Refugees
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Reaching Out: German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.
© BPA |
Germany is to seek European Union backing on a plan to resettle tens of thousands of Christians who have given up hope that their ancient community in Iraq can survive.
German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has spoken out in favor of taking in a large contingent of the hundreds of thousands of Christians who have fled Iraq to refugee camps in Jordan.
The group, which has lived in Iraq since before Islam and mainly speaks the Aramaic language, complains that intimidation, murder and abductions of Christians have continued, even as violence between Arabic-speaking Sunni and Shiite Muslim factions has declined.
"The situation of the Iraqi refugees is cause for concern. Many of them have fled from persecution to neighboring countries, where they have been accepted and received crucial aid from the United Nations and the European Union," Schäuble said in a recent guest commentary printed in Bild am Sonntag, the Sunday edition of the mass-circulation daily Bild.
"The capacities of the region are nearly exhausted. But still many thousands are seeking refuge from murder, violence and persecution. Among them are many people of the Christian faith," he continued.
"We must help here and provide them with a place to call home in the European nations, until they can return to their own homes," he suggested, adding that Germany has helped many refugees over the years, including the Vietnamese in the late 1970s and Bosnian war refugees in the early 1990s.
A site for the refugees in Germany would also have yet to be determined. The northern state of Lower Saxony proposed on Monday that the Friedland refugee camp, which accommodates declining numbers of ethnic German immigrants from eastern Europe and Russia, be used as a first home for the Iraqis. Meanwhile the federal government has suggested a camp near the city of Goettingen in the same state.
The Catholic and Lutheran churches have pressed for Germany to take in 20,000 to 30,000 refugees.
German Foreign Ministry data suggests an original Iraqi Christian population of 800,000 had been halved by 2005 to 400,000.
Iraq's two main native Christian denominations are the independent Church of the East under Patriarch Dinkha IV, and the Chaldean Catholic Church under patriarch Emmanuel III Delly which is linked to Catholicism. (TWIG/dpa)
Links:
 Federal Ministry of the Interior
Wolfgang Schäuble in Bild am Sonntag (Interior Ministry, in German)
 Germany to Push EU to Take in Iraqi Christian Refugees (DW-World.de)
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