Source: SIR
“We can waste no time now, the European Union must take its responsibility and see to relocating the non-Muslim minorities that left Iraq; the member states will not move until the EU takes a decision”: it was said to SIR by Otmar Oehring, head of the Human Rights section of Missio, an International Catholic Missionary organisation (Germany). A meeting is going on in Brussels, promoted by Comece (Commission of the EU Bishops Conferences), to look at the situation of the Iraqi refugees, 4.4 million of them, mostly non-Muslims, including many Christians, as well as members of other religious minorities. Last November, Comece had made an appeal for these refugees, and in early January its president, mgr. Adrianus van Luyn, had written to the Slovenian presidency of the EU to ask for the issue to be put on agenda of the next meeting of the European Council and for a quota of Iraqi refugees, about 60 thousand, to be taken by our continent. Yesterday, a delegation of people working in assistance to refugees, that were in Brussels to meet the members of the European Commission and Parliament, met the head of the ministerial staff of the Commission in charge of migration, Franco Frattini. According to Ohering, one of the members of such delegation, the outcome was not satisfactory: “We were invited to appeal to the national governments and parliaments, but we are convinced that the initiative must be taken by Brussels; the refugees emergency must be a common concern, to be shared first, then faced by each country”. It is clear, he goes on, “that these people will not be able to go back to Iraq ever again, but they cannot remain where they are either (mostly Syria, Jordan, Turkey), because even there they are threatened all the time by their Iraqi fellow countrymen”. “A crime against humankind before which too many people look and do nothing”: this is the definition of the war and the violence committed in Iraq given to SIR by sister Marie-Claude Naddaf, Mother Superior of the Community of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Damascus, who is in charge of about 1,500 refugees, both Christians and from other religions. That’s why she asked “the European institutions to take responsibility and do something to show their solidarity”. “We – explains sister Naddaf – offer shelter and assistance to families with children. Women and children are particularly vulnerable: shocked by violence, often disabled or sick, they need human and psychological support”. About 1 million 400 thousand Iraqi refugees are living in Syria, but the country has not signed the Geneva Convention on the Refugee Status.
Sister Naddaf’s organisation, working in partnership with Unhcr (United Nations High Commission for the Refugees), also provides women’s training schemes. “Many children – goes on the Mother Superior – are attending the Syrian schools, but many others are forced to work to help their families, often lacking a father”. “People with no country or future”, states mgr. Francois Yakan, vicar of the Patriarchate of the Chaldeans in Turkey, with reference to the thousands of Iraqi refugees living in the country, waiting to leave again for some other destination in search of shelter. Mgr. Yakan asks “the European institutions to engage in a serious reflection and find a fair, dignified solution to this humanitarian emergency”, which, according to Unhcr, “is the worst in the Middle East since 1948”. “At this time of Lent – goes on the vicar –, I would like to recall Jesus’s words: if you have given shelter to only one of these little ones, you will have given shelter to me”. About 40 thousand Iraqi refugees are living in the EU, and Unhcr has made an appeal to take at least another 20 thousand.
“We can waste no time now, the European Union must take its responsibility and see to relocating the non-Muslim minorities that left Iraq; the member states will not move until the EU takes a decision”: it was said to SIR by Otmar Oehring, head of the Human Rights section of Missio, an International Catholic Missionary organisation (Germany). A meeting is going on in Brussels, promoted by Comece (Commission of the EU Bishops Conferences), to look at the situation of the Iraqi refugees, 4.4 million of them, mostly non-Muslims, including many Christians, as well as members of other religious minorities. Last November, Comece had made an appeal for these refugees, and in early January its president, mgr. Adrianus van Luyn, had written to the Slovenian presidency of the EU to ask for the issue to be put on agenda of the next meeting of the European Council and for a quota of Iraqi refugees, about 60 thousand, to be taken by our continent. Yesterday, a delegation of people working in assistance to refugees, that were in Brussels to meet the members of the European Commission and Parliament, met the head of the ministerial staff of the Commission in charge of migration, Franco Frattini. According to Ohering, one of the members of such delegation, the outcome was not satisfactory: “We were invited to appeal to the national governments and parliaments, but we are convinced that the initiative must be taken by Brussels; the refugees emergency must be a common concern, to be shared first, then faced by each country”. It is clear, he goes on, “that these people will not be able to go back to Iraq ever again, but they cannot remain where they are either (mostly Syria, Jordan, Turkey), because even there they are threatened all the time by their Iraqi fellow countrymen”. “A crime against humankind before which too many people look and do nothing”: this is the definition of the war and the violence committed in Iraq given to SIR by sister Marie-Claude Naddaf, Mother Superior of the Community of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Damascus, who is in charge of about 1,500 refugees, both Christians and from other religions. That’s why she asked “the European institutions to take responsibility and do something to show their solidarity”. “We – explains sister Naddaf – offer shelter and assistance to families with children. Women and children are particularly vulnerable: shocked by violence, often disabled or sick, they need human and psychological support”. About 1 million 400 thousand Iraqi refugees are living in Syria, but the country has not signed the Geneva Convention on the Refugee Status.
Sister Naddaf’s organisation, working in partnership with Unhcr (United Nations High Commission for the Refugees), also provides women’s training schemes. “Many children – goes on the Mother Superior – are attending the Syrian schools, but many others are forced to work to help their families, often lacking a father”. “People with no country or future”, states mgr. Francois Yakan, vicar of the Patriarchate of the Chaldeans in Turkey, with reference to the thousands of Iraqi refugees living in the country, waiting to leave again for some other destination in search of shelter. Mgr. Yakan asks “the European institutions to engage in a serious reflection and find a fair, dignified solution to this humanitarian emergency”, which, according to Unhcr, “is the worst in the Middle East since 1948”. “At this time of Lent – goes on the vicar –, I would like to recall Jesus’s words: if you have given shelter to only one of these little ones, you will have given shelter to me”. About 40 thousand Iraqi refugees are living in the EU, and Unhcr has made an appeal to take at least another 20 thousand.