Two-thirds of Christians have left Syria

Two-thirds of Syria's Christians have left the country, an Aleppo bishop said Wednesday, blaming violence and insecurity spread by extremist groups and insisting most Christians still support the Syrian president.

Chaldean Catholic bishop Antoine Audo said there were about 1.5 million Christians in the country before the start of the conflict in March 2011.

"I think now there are maybe 500,000. Two-thirds have left mainly due to the insecurity," he told reporters in Geneva.

In the embattled northern city of Aleppo, the exodus was even greater, he said, with only around 40,000 of its once 160,000-strong Christian community remaining.

"You cannot imagine the dangers that we face every day," he said.

Wealthy Christians have all left, while "the middle classes have become poor and the poor have become miserable".

But he denied President Bashar al-Assad was to blame for the horrors of the Syria conflict, which has cost more than 270,000 lives in five years.

"There is no persecution of Christians" by the government, he said....
 AFP
16/3/16