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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Ben, so, the pope said he felt duty-bound. He talked about how martyred this country has been. Talk to us about how the Christians there have suffered and how their ranks have been depleted.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, just look at the numbers, Christiane. In 2003, there were about 1.5 million Christians here. Today, maybe 300,000. And when we speak to the Christians here in Iraq, we spoke to many up in the northern part of the country where they are most concentrated, they tell you that sort of a critical mass that has been reached whereby so many of their relatives now live abroad, that they feel sort of a pull of gravity in that direction of what they have seen over the years has just, you know, one catastrophe over the — after another. For instance, I spoke to one man, he served for eight years in the Iraqi army during the Iran/Iraq war. He was call back to duty during the Kuwait invasion and that situation. He moved to Mosul, opened up a liquor store, was frequently threatened by extremists there. And then one day, he was five minutes late and closing the shutters to the store, and the police came, arrested him and throw him in jail. And he said, while he sat in jail for those three days, he decided, I will leave this country for good. And that’s what he did. Twenty-one years ago, he moved to Sweden where there is a very large Arab Christian community. People have — and it’s important to stress that the Christians particularly have suffered because they were the focus of the terrorism Al-Qaeda here in Iraq and then ISIS and, of course, there were the Yazidis as well who were also targeted. But Iraqis have suffered across the board from war with Iran, from these sanctions, from the chaos that followed the American invasion in 2003, and finally, from the war against ISIS. So, there is a feeling among many Christians that even though this is the land that they trace their roots back centuries and centuries that Christianity has such deep roots here, that the soil has become so infertile for that community that it may be better to leave. Christiane.
About This Episode EXPAND
Dr. Sasa, the envoy representing Myanmar’s parliament to the U.N., discusses the military coup in his country. Novelist Isabel Allende reflects on feminism and her new memoir “The Soul of a Woman.” James Patterson and Matt Eversmann discuss their new book “Walk in My Combat Boots.” CNN correspondent Ben Wedeman gives an update on Pope Francis’ first ever papal visit to Iraq.
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