ICC Note: Despite escaping the Christian Genocide and forced displacement in Iraq and Syria, Christian refugees in Turkey still feel the intense discrimination from Muslim populations. Christian refugee children cannot enroll in school because they do not speak Turkish and the families have been forced to dress as Muslims in public and worship in the privacy of their homes.

1/26/2016 Turkey (Gospel News) – It’s been said that Turkey has taken in about half of all of the Syrians who have fled to Turkey due to the civil war. As of last year, Turkey has received a total of 1.9 million refugees. Turkey is typically the first choice of Syrian families who feel that they must flee because it is right on Syria’s border. But for the 45,000 Syrian Christians who have reportedly chosen Turkey, life is only slightly better at best.

About 14 percent of the Syrian refugees are now staying in camps because Turkey really doesn’t have anywhere else to put the constant waves that keep pouring across the border. And of those who do make the courageous journey, if they are Christians, they find that they must pretend to be Muslims in public in order to avoid being attacked. They limit their worship of Jesus to the privacy of their homes. Even as they attempt to survive in Turkey, many have also attempted to apply to be accepted as refugees in other countries while they await a response.

Many of the families who flee to Turkey can’t enroll their children in school because the children don’t speak Turkish. Fathers who attempt to get work are often only able to get very low paying positions at best. One refugee going by the name of Linda said that her husband, who is an electrician, has only been able to get temporary jobs at construction sites. His pay is $25 Turkish liras, which is the equivalent of about $8.28 per day.

Linda also said, “When ISIL militants raided our house in Baghdad last year, my daughter Nuşik was seven. She stopped talking on that day and has never spoken again since then.

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Turkey’s Christian population has gone from 20 percent down to .2 percent within the past 100 years. Interestingly, it has been a member of NATO for about 64 years this year.  Turkey was the original capital of the Holy Roman Empire until the Ottoman’s attacked and defeated it in 1453. It has been a primarily Muslim nation ever since.

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