Mandaean family of three wiped out in Baghdad

In Iraq the chain of attacks and murders against members of the Mandaean religious community shows no sign of breaking. As the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) learned last night, in the evening of 9th September three members of a Mandaean family were murdered in the Iraqi capital. The family jeweller’s shop was plundered and destroyed in the attack. The unidentified criminals murdered the owner of the shop, Mahdi Abdulkarim Alkerbolli, his brother Kamel Abdulkarim Alkerbolli and his eight-year old son Ahmed Mahdi Abdulkarim.

These crimes are part of a long series of abductions, murders and rapesagainst members of this oldest religious minority in Iraq, who date their faith back to John the Baptist. To mention just one of these crimes: In February 2008 ten members of a Mandaean family died in a targeted rocket attack on their house in the Alaza part of Kut. They had previously received threats from Islamists. The continuing terror and the crimes of violence against members of their religious community have forced some 25,000 of the former 30,000 Mandaeans in Irak to flee to neighbouring countries. The oldest communities of Iraq, the Mandaeans and the Christian Assyrian Chaldean Aramaeans, are now faced with extinction. Some hundreds of thousands are living for the most part in abject poverty as refugees in the Arab neighbouring countries.

„We call on the German government and the coalition parties of the SPD and CDU to abandon their irresponsible delaying tactics concerning the admission of the persecuted Christians and Mandaeans of Iraq”, said the GfbV General Secretary, Tilman Zülch. „It is to your credit if you think of the terrible crimes of the past. Bit it rings hollow if you do not draw the consequences for the present day. The dying and suffering of these minorities must be ended. Germany should at last take the lead among the European countries and take up at least 30,000 refugees.”

There is also hardly any other social group from the Near East which is so inclined and determined to choose Germany as their new home. Both the Christians and the Mandaeans from Iraq are highly motivated and would bring experts in various fields. Apart from this the Society for Threatened Peoples always maintains that persecution of a minority must be the first criterion for acceptance.

The Society for Threatened Peoples has since 2007 repeatedly with countless appeals and lobbying talks called for the acceptance of at least 30,000 Christians and Mandaeans from Iraq. It welcomed the fact that this year for the first time a corresponding readiness of the German government was announced. But it has so far waited in vain for a decision. Today 1,200 persons of Mandaean origin and about 100,000 members of the Christian Assyrian Chaldaic Aramaic minorities are living in Germany as completely integrated citizens.