THE MIDDLE East’s population of 12 million Christians will be halved by 2020, if current demographic trends continue, writs World Review expert, Lord Alton. Christians made up a quarter of the Middle East’s population 100 years ago, now they are less than five per cent.
.... Aleppo’s Melkite Greek Catholic archbishopric in Aleppo has been hit more than 20 times by mortar shells and was under fire again in June 2015. Christians have been killed, lost homes and livelihoods and are being traumatised by Syria’s civil war.
There are fewer than 100,000 of the 250,000 Christians left in Aleppo. Thousands have been killed, churches and ancient monasteries blown up, whole communities forced to flee, bishops and priests abducted, some executed. Torture, beheadings and even ‘crucifixion’ - by hanging corpses of the executed on crosses - has become commonplace. [World Review] Read more
