Panelists express concern about flight of Iraqi minorities

Published: 2005-07-15

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Up to 80,000 members of Iraq's minority groups have fled Iraq since U.S. troops captured former President Saddam Hussein, said the director of a U.S.-based advocacy group. Michael Youash, director of the Iraq Sustainable Democracy Project, an Assyrian special project that focuses on the role minorities -- including Christians -- play in Iraq, admitted that good statistics were hard to come by because "it's chaos there." He said, "People are voting with their feet, post-liberation. These are people who stayed the course for years. We have to ask the question as to why they are leaving now." Youash spoke at a panel discussion on Iraqi minorities July 13 at the National Press Club in Washington. The panel was sponsored by the Iraq Sustainable Democracy Project.

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