Source: SIR
After the appeal made last November by the Bishops of Comece (Commission of the EU Bishops Conferences) for the Iraqi refugees, and after the recent attacks in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk, the president of Comece, mgr. Adrianus van Luyn, wrote to the Slovenian presidency of the EU, asking it to put the matter on the agenda of the next meeting of the Council for Justice and Internal Affairs. In a letter published yesterday night, mgr. Van Luyn reminds Dragutin Mate, the Slovenian Minister of Internal Affairs and president of the Council for Justice and Internal Affairs, “of the fate of the 4.4 million Iraqis who have been forced to leave their country”, “the most serious humanitarian catastrophe in the Middle East since 1948”, according to the Unhcr (UN High Commission for the Refugees). Of these refugees, “the non-Muslims (Christians, Mandeans and Yazites) are especially vulnerable”, because “they are considered and treated as irreligious by part of the Muslim population in the countries where they have taken refuge (Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey)”. (continued)
“Before such a inhuman situation, destination countries overwhelmed by the arrivals and the risk of a proliferation of illegal immigration chains”, mgr. Van Luyn asks “the EU to take action”. “As when the Vietnamese boat-people were taken over by Europe in the Seventies”, the president of Comece proposes that “the EU Governments take over the minorities of non-Muslim Iraqi refugees, a contingent of 60 thousand Christians, Mandeans and Yazites”. In addition, mgr. Van Luyn asks that “the Governments of the countries neighbouring on Iraq be politically and practically supported in their efforts to accommodate these flows of refugees”. Copy of the document was also sent to Franco Frattini, deputy president of the European Commission in charge of Migration.
After the appeal made last November by the Bishops of Comece (Commission of the EU Bishops Conferences) for the Iraqi refugees, and after the recent attacks in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk, the president of Comece, mgr. Adrianus van Luyn, wrote to the Slovenian presidency of the EU, asking it to put the matter on the agenda of the next meeting of the Council for Justice and Internal Affairs. In a letter published yesterday night, mgr. Van Luyn reminds Dragutin Mate, the Slovenian Minister of Internal Affairs and president of the Council for Justice and Internal Affairs, “of the fate of the 4.4 million Iraqis who have been forced to leave their country”, “the most serious humanitarian catastrophe in the Middle East since 1948”, according to the Unhcr (UN High Commission for the Refugees). Of these refugees, “the non-Muslims (Christians, Mandeans and Yazites) are especially vulnerable”, because “they are considered and treated as irreligious by part of the Muslim population in the countries where they have taken refuge (Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey)”. (continued)
“Before such a inhuman situation, destination countries overwhelmed by the arrivals and the risk of a proliferation of illegal immigration chains”, mgr. Van Luyn asks “the EU to take action”. “As when the Vietnamese boat-people were taken over by Europe in the Seventies”, the president of Comece proposes that “the EU Governments take over the minorities of non-Muslim Iraqi refugees, a contingent of 60 thousand Christians, Mandeans and Yazites”. In addition, mgr. Van Luyn asks that “the Governments of the countries neighbouring on Iraq be politically and practically supported in their efforts to accommodate these flows of refugees”. Copy of the document was also sent to Franco Frattini, deputy president of the European Commission in charge of Migration.
