The four Christians out of 1,358 Syrian refugees recommended by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), for resettlement in the UK were rejected. Only Muslim refugees from the war-torn country were granted permission to resettle.
The information came to light following a freedom of information request by the Barnabas Fund – a charity that supports persecuted Christians.
In a statement, the charity said: “As Barnabas Fund recently reported, of the 7,060 Syrian refugees the UNHCR recommended to the UK in 2017 only 25 were Christians (0.35 per cent). However, the Home Office only accepted eleven of these – meaning that Christians made up only 0.23 per cent of Syrian refugees resettled in the UK last year.”
The charity explained it had to “go to considerable lengths to obtain these figures in the face of what appeared to be a sustained attempt by Home Office officials to avoid their release”.
The information was provided following the charity taking the “extreme step of obtaining an order from the Information Commissioner’s Office threatening the Home Office with contempt of court proceedings in the High Court”.
The statement went on to say: “It is widely accepted that Christians, who constituted around 10 per cent of Syria’s pre-war population, were specifically targeted by jihadi rebels and continue to be at…
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