Highlighting the plight of Christians

Sir — Carol Hunt and your paper are to be congratulated for the article (Sunday Independent, July 31) highlighting the savage ethnic cleansing being endured by Christians in many Muslim countries in the Middle East.

This has long been a taboo subject for European media and Carol Hunt’s article will be an eye-opener for many people.

The Barnabas Fund in the UK helps Christian refugees in wartorn Syria and Iraq although the ethnic cleansing is not confined to those countries and is widespread across the Middle East . The Barnabas Fund reasons that there are many very wealthy Muslim countries helping Muslims while Christian refugees have little, if any support from Christian Europe. The charity has already settled Christian families in Poland, the Czech Republic, Brazil and Australia.

The British government, it seems, refuses to take Christian refugees despite pressure from the Barnabas Fund.

Surely as a “Christian” country, our Government could show some generosity to our fellow Christians in the Middle East by offering them refuge. Christians take refuge only in churches. Therefore, taking refugees only from the camps means that we are taking in more Muslims.

Is it too much to hope for that Irish Christians could start a charity and put pressure on our Government to adopt policies favourable to Christian refugees?