On behalf of the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac people living in their Homeland (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Iran) and Diaspora, we are writing to you to express our deep concern and growing alarm at the rapidly deteriorating situation of our people in Iraq.

It is evident that this dramatic situation touches all Iraqi citizens. However, since the U.S. led invasion of March 2003, the escalation of violence against especially the Christians in Iraq is spreading terror and despair within this already ravaged, persecuted, and defenceless community.

Indeed, the Christians of Iraq are at present the victims of an infernal cycle. As a reaction to any military operation of the Multinational Force-Iraq (MNF-I) and /or Western-World initiated problems like the Danish Cartoons, Christians have to face a wave of coordinated church bombings followed by kidnappings and assassinations. According to recent reports (September 2007), 33 churches have been attacked and more than 500 Christians have been killed in deliberate, organized and horrific ways.

We would not disturb Your Holiness in mentioning all other regular forms of discrimination, extortion, confiscation, forced exile and threats; but we believe that these barbaric acts and attacks on the vulnerable Christian civilian population are perpetrated daily, targeting them for terror specifically because of their ethnic and religious identity. Attacks on these defenceless people are compelling them to leave their historical homeland and force them into the Diaspora.

The United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recent reports draw a very bleak picture of the current chaotic situation of the internally displaced people inside Iraq and refugees in neighbouring countries. These refugees are living in appalling conditions where they are neglected, and hardly receive sufficient aid or assistance from international organizations.

We witness this genocidal event even as we see hopes dim for the survival of the last world population using Aramaic, the oldest continuously spoken and written language of the Middle East.

The future of this indigenous people, known under various names (Assyrian, Chaldeans, Syriacs