Lawmakers Aim to Declare ISIS’ Terror of Christians ‘Genocide’
U.S. lawmakers introduced a bipartisan resolution Wednesday to formally declare the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s targeting of Christians “genocide.”
U.S. lawmakers introduced a bipartisan resolution Wednesday to formally declare the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s targeting of Christians “genocide.”
“Christianity in the Middle East is shattered,” Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., said in a statement. “The ancient faith tradition lies beaten, broken, and dying.”
In its fight to establish a caliphate governed by strict Sharia law, ISIS has driven Christians out of Iraq and Syria in masses as they torch their churches to dust and murder them in scores, often referring to them as “crusaders” in its holy war.
“[A]n official statement of the Congress of the United States must be made to label these atrocities carried out against Christians and other religious minorities for what they are…genocide,” Rep. Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat who also sponsored the resolution, said in a statement.
The attacks extend a deeply rooted religious divide in the Middle East that has left Christians clinging to survival as their numbers dwindle in the region.
Christians made up about 20 percent of the Middle East’s population at the beginning of the 20th century, according to Newsweek. That number is now around 5 percent.
‘‘Christianity is under an existential threat,” Eshoo told The New York Times.
The Iraq War and fall of Saddam Hussein partially fueled the latest exodus, diminishing the Christian population in Iraq from 1.5 million in 2003 to less than 500,000 today, the Times reported.
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Source: Lawmakers Aim to Declare ISIS’ Terror of Christians ‘Genocide’
