Only half a million Christians left in Syria, says bishop

There are now only approximately half a million Christians in Syria compared to the almost 1.5 million prior to the civil war that started in 2011. This is according to Antoine Audo, a Chaldean Catholic bishop in Aleppo.

"I think now there are maybe 500,000. Two-thirds have left mainly due to the insecurity," Audo told reporters on Wednesday during a press conference in Geneva at the UN Headquarters, as quoted by France 24.

Audo disclosed that within five years that the war between the Syrian government and the Islamic rebel groups has been going on, a good number of Christians who have the means to flee have fled, while "the middle classes have become poor and the poor have become miserable." The conflict has also taken away a lot of lives, numbering to more than 270,000.

"You cannot imagine the dangers that we face every day," he said, referring to the hardships that the city of Aleppo has experienced. That particular area that used to have approximately 160,000 Christians now only see a quarter of the number remaining, around 40,000.

Audo believes that the tragic fate of Christians is due to jihadists who want to destabilize Syria. The country, he said, used to be a model for showing that Christians and Muslims could live together.

"I think... this war is not coming from inside Syria," he said. "I think all is organised from outside to destroy Syria."

President Bashar al-Asssad's government, he said, has not persecuted Christians. He expressed that the majority of Syrian Christians, 80 percent according to his estimate, would support the president if he would run for reelection.

In a joint statement in February, Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill said, as translated by Radio Vaticana, "In many countries of the Middle East and North Africa whole families, villages and cities of our brothers and sisters in Christ are being completely exterminated. ... It is with pain that we call to mind the situation in Syria, Iraq and other countries of the Middle East, and the massive exodus of Christians from the land in which our faith was first disseminated and in which they have lived since the time of the Apostles, together with other religious communities."

The statement calls for the international community to end the violence and terrorism, and to "prevent the further expulsion of Christians from the Middle East."