The Catholic Leader - 12 November - Issue 5477

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The Catholic Leader, November 12, 2017
News
By Emilie Ng
CHRISTIANS rebuilding their
homes in devastated Qaraqosh could
soon receive financial support from
Australians concerned about the
diminishing presence of Christianity
in Iraq.
Benjamin Blanchard, the founder of a non-
government organisation helping persecuted
Christians living in the Middle East, SOS
Chretiens d’Orient, will visit Australia later this
month with the hope of raising $150,000 to help
rebuild Qaraqosh.
Mr Blanchard will give a series of talks in
Brisbane, New South Wales and Victoria be-
tween November 26 and December 10.
He will be welcomed into the country by Ora
Duffley, a Brisbane Catholic who volunteered
with Mr Blanchard’s organisation before Easter
this year.
Ms Duffley became the first Australian to
volunteer with SOS Chretiens d’Orient, which
has attracted 1000 volunteers since beginning in
2013.
She said the organisation was impressed with
the financial support she received from Australi-
ans and were now inviting the country to support
in rebuilding one of Iraq’s oldest Christian cities.
“One of the projects they’ve given Australia
is to help us rebuild the Christian city of Qa-
raqosh,” Ms Duffley said.
“We’ve raised a challenge for Australia to
raise $150,000 in two weeks.”
Understood to be the largest Christian city in
Iraq, Qaraqosh came under attack by Islamic
militants ISIS, who raided the town to erase any
Australia picked to help rebuild shattered Christian town Qaraqosh
Restoring hope in Iraq
traces of Christianity.
Families fled their homes, many losing their
lives in the process, until Iraqi forces took back
the city in October 2016.
Several families who fled Qaraqosh were able
to take up refugee status in Brisbane and are now
living in the Bracken Ridge parish on Brisbane’s
north.
The funds raised during Mr Blanchard’s Aus-
tralian tour will help SOS Chretiens d’Orient’s
work in giving hope to those who lost everything
to remain as Christians in Qaraqosh.
As well as providing emergency aid and
medical care to Christian refugees in Iraq, SOS
Chretiens d’Orient also helps displaced persons
to return to the lands where their ancestors lived.
Ms Duffley said Christians in the Middle East
had lived in the region for thousands of years
and deserved to call their villages home.
“Christians in these countries, in Iraq and in
Syria, they are peaceful people and they bring a
stability and a civility to society, and the Middle
East needs that,” Ms Duffley said.
“Christians are good citizens, they’re educated
people.
“They bring a stability to this place and with-
out that I think things would be even worse in
the Middle East.
“Christianity is the only faith that really
forgives whatever happens to you and that is a
powerful thing.
“For the Middle East to lose their Christians,
to lose this example, it will be a dark day.”
Rebuilding
Chritian
cities:
Benjamin
Blanchard
will give
a series
of talks in
Brisbane,
New South
Wales and
Victoria
between
November
26 and
December
10.