COUNTRY PROFILE SYRIA
SELECTED INCIDENTS DECEMBER 2022 Christians in Idlib reported that HTS still massively restricted Christmas worship, limiting prayers to church halls and prohibiting bell ringing. 240 DECEMBER 2022 Describing a visit to Hassaké-Nisibi Archdiocese, Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan said Christian numbers had collapsed from 100,000 in the 1970s to less than 20,000. He added: “This poses a most dangerous challenge for our survival in the land.” 241 MARCH 2023 Northern Syria’s Christian community has been “irrevocably damaged." 242 Areas formerly controlled by jihadists and others seized by Turkish-backed forces have been nearly emptied of indigenous Christian populations. Christians in Raqqa have declined from 11,000 in 2011 to barely 100. Over the same period, Christians in Deir ez-Zor, which previously numbered nearly 5,000, have all but disappeared, and Assyrian Christians in Khabour Valley have shrunk from 15,000 to less than 1,000. 243 SEPTEMBER 2023 Desperate Christians in Syria and Lebanon suffering extreme poverty “no longer have confidence in their country,” and think “there is no light at the end of the tunnel," according to the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch Youssef Absi. He said: “We are doing everything possible to help our faithful, to provide them with essential services.… Without support, we can no longer convince them to stay.” The Patriarch said the situation could improve if the West lifted sanctions.” 244 NOVEMBER 2023 Nazira Gawriya, co-chair of the Syriac Union Party, said Christians are at risk from a resurgence of Daesh, especially in the northeast. She said Daesh may exploit Syrian security weakness, caused by an escalation of attacks by Turkey. Ms. Gawriya said the country’s much-diminished Christian presence faces an existential threat as a result of displacement caused by the violence. 245
While Syria’s civil war has affected all faiths, ethnicities, and other groups, in terms of displacement and migration, the Christian community has been affected “disproportionately.” 227 Christians, who were more than 1.5 million before the war began in 2011, 228 have been reduced to as few as 250,000, 229 amid growing fears for the Church’s very survival in some parts of the country. 230 In northern Syria, much-reduced Christian groups face different pressures. In the northwestern Idlib governorate, Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) declared an end to persecution of Christians by, for example, allowing the re-opening of the Armenian Apostolic Church of St. Anna, which was closed for 10 years. 231 But HTS continued to ban religious practices and seize property, in some cases converting buildings into mosques. 232 Clergy have recounted attempts to erase Christian symbols from churches and monasteries. Christians in Idlib region have fallen from 20,000 faithful to barely 600 233 and in some areas “approached extinction.” 234 The February 2023 earthquake triggered further waves of migration. 235 In Al-Hassake, northeast Syria, an escalation of Turkish attacks 236 and security fears severely hampered the Christian community’s recovery. Senior clergy report that there are now no Assyrian Christians left in 30 villages previously occupied by Daesh (ISIS). 237 In the 70 percent 238 of the country under Assad government control, the state has declared a pro-Christian policy. However, the mass migration of the last decade, triggered by extreme anti-Christian persecution, continues apace, largely driven by severe economic hardship. Aleppo’s Christians, formerly 250,000-strong (12 percent of the region’s population) fell to 30,000 (1.4 percent), according to Syria’s apostolic nuncio, Cardinal Mario Zenari. In April 2024, he reported that 500 Syrian Christians were leaving Syria every day. He said: “We see the churches die.” 239
36 Persecuted and Forgotten?
Powered by FlippingBook