Forgotten victims - Iraqi Christians who speak the language of Jesus

IN recent months the level of violence in Iraq has increased with almost daily reports of bombings. Caught in the midst of the chaos are a small minority, the Christian Iraqis.

In the first century AD, long before Islam spread in the seventh century, St Thomas the Apostle brought Christianity to the Chaldeans and the Assyrians of Mesopatamia. The Assyrians are to Iraq what the American Indians are to America.

The Assyrians and Chaldeans are some of the few remaining peoples who speak and worship in the original Aramaic language of Jesus Christ. They are the oldest continuous churches in the history of Christianity.