Imagine leaving your home and community behind, fleeing war and violence, then traveling from country to country in search of safety. Then, the moment you think you’ve found a place to stop and rest, you’re turned away.
Welcome to the life of Christian Syrian refugees.
Greg Musselman of Voice of the Martyrs Canada says a disproportionate number of Christians have been denied asylum from various countries. When believers travel to “Jordan, Lebanon and some of the other places in the Middle East, they are just finding it difficult to not only get into the refugee camps but then try to get asylum to go to another country like Canada.”
Why? Among other reasons, many of the countries where refugees initially apply for asylum are Muslim-majority nations. This leads to prejudice in the application process.
In fact, Musselman says only 1% of refugees allowed to immigrate to countries such as Canada or the United States are Christians. That’s a problem when “we know that the Christian population is way more than 1%,” Musselman says. “Sometimes it’s up into 30-40%, or at least 10% in countries like Syria.”
Christians who do make it to refugee camps face their own problems. In many camps, they will encounter “those that are more Islamist in their ideology and thinking, and they persecute Christians and make life very difficult for them.”
These are families and individuals who have gone through all of the proper channels only to be turned away because of who they call Lord and Savior. It’s a problem that has persisted for years, and it does not seem to be going away.
Although targets of this discrimination have been labeled Christians, they are not necessarily members of the body of Christ. They may simply be from a different background than the majority Islamic culture. In extreme cases, they may be on the wrong side of the Sunni/Shia divide.
That being said, “the more targeted discrimination and persecution is the followers of Jesus and anyone that’s affiliated in a sense with Christianity,” Musselman clarifies.
SOURCE: Mission Network News, Alex Anhalt
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