Thousands of Iraqi Christians are fleeing to the Nineveh plain and the largely autonomous region of Kurdistan after fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) pillaged the city of Mosul and a broad swath of the country during the past week, the Christian Broadcast Network website reports today (June 17, 2014).
The chaos is destroying Chaldean, Armenian, and Assyrian communities that date back to Christianity's earliest days.
Iraq was estimated to have more than one million Christians before the U.S.-led invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Today, church officials estimate only 450,000 Christians remain within Iraq's borders.
Islamist militants have targeted Christians and bombed churches in repeated waves in Baghdad and northern Iraq during the past decade.
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