Press Releases

04/19/2021

Syria: Fading hope

No sign of life from abducted bishops since 2013 – Christian minority almost completely gone (Press Release)

After eight years without any sign of life, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) is losing hope that two bishops who were abducted in northern Syria on April 22, 2013, might still be alive. "This year, the church bells in Aleppo will on that day once again ring in memory of Mor Gregorius Yohanna Ibrahim, the Archbishop of the Syrian Orthodox Church, and of the Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church, Boulos Yazigi," stated Dr. Kamal Sido, the STP's Middle East Consultant, in Göttingen on Monday. The two bishops were attacked and kidnapped by unknown persons on their way to negotiations regarding the release of a priest who was captured by Islamists near Aleppo. Their driver was shot dead on the spot. In 2014, the disappeared Christian clergymen were awarded the Weimar Human Rights Prize, at the suggestion of the STP. To date, all efforts to find out more about their whereabouts have been in vain.

"For many members of the Christian community, but also other religious minorities, the abduction was a very clear warning – and most of them have meanwhile fled from the region. In many parts of Syria, there is no longer any religious diversity," Sido reported. The Jewish minority had already fled in the 1950s, when pan-Arab ideology took hold and conflict with Israel ensued. "Today, aggressive Islamism in the Turkish-occupied territories is driving out the Christians, Yazidis, Druze, Ismailis, and other religious minorities." According to Sido, we are witnessing a campaign to forcibly change the demographics in the region, as all non-Muslims and many Kurds have had to flee severe human rights crimes – and most of the homes of the displaced people are meanwhile inhabited by families of radical Islamists.

The Assad regime still does not bother the long-established Christian communities. However, Sido criticized that distrust of new churches, especially evangelical congregations, prevails. The Sunni Arab population is suspicious of people who convert from Islam to Christianity – and in areas under the control of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), there is more tolerance among the Kurdish Sunni population. "Religious minorities are protected by the 'Northern Syrian Autonomous Administration', and religious festivals such as Christmas are broadcast live by media."

While more than 25 percent of the people in what is now Syria were Christians in 1900, they now make up only about 3 percent. From 2011 to the present, the Christian population shrank from 1.4 million to an estimated 500,000 to 700,000. Today, Syria is home to a total of about 19 million people.