ICC Note: While Christians continue to suffer widespread persecution and elimination, the world seems to have become numb to the atrocities. There are places this year in the Middle East where there will be no Christmas for the first time in thousands of years. Not only are Christians being uprooted and killed but they are being uprooted and killed in the ancient homelands of the religion. Yet the world doesn’t seem to care this season.

12/20/2016 Middle East (Herald Sun): CHRISTIANS in the Middle East and parts of Africa are facing a grim Christmas. Attacks against them have intensified in recent years with various Islamist forces decimating and in some instances eradicating local Christian populations.

It’s been labelled ethnic cleansing but religious genocide would be more accurate.

Where is the Pope as thousands of his followers are driven out of their homes, abused or killed for merely observing their religious beliefs? Why isn’t the plight of persecuted Christians a far greater focus for the pontiff and other Christian leaders around the world, including our own outspoken clergymen? Many grandstand about Islamophobia, global warming, welfare reform, almost anything other than attacks on disempowered Christian minorities who are steadily being eliminated, some from areas that Christians have inhabited since the days of Christ.

Christianity may predate Islam by 600 years but in much of the Middle East the former is disappearing; there are regions in Iraq where for the first time in about 2000 years there are no Christians left to observe Christmas. In less than 15 years Iraq’s Christian population has gone from about 1.5 million to current estimates ranging from 140,000 to 300,000.

The sad reality is that Christians, with a number of other minority groups, faced less danger in Saddam Hussein’s bloodthirsty reign in Iraq than they do today.

In Africa the hideous cruelty inflicted on Christian children, tortured and killed alongside their parents in places like Nigeria, Chad, Central African Republic, Congo and Eritrea, are enough to make you despair for humanity.

And yet it seems many in the West have become immune to such horrors, to the point that only a slaughter accompanied by explosions in a recognisable location is deemed worthy of headlines. Terror attacks and mass killings of Christians like this month’s bombing in Egypt make the news, but daily atrocities rarely get any coverage.

The suicide bombing at St Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo earlier this month has again raised tensions for Egypt’s remaining Coptic Christians who feel under siege. Copts face increasing discrimination and hostility in their daily lives; from their children being banned from sporting teams to acts of violence against Coptic women, who are typically unveiled.

…

[Full Story]