Following are excerpts from an interview with Archbishop Athanasius Toma Daoud, representative of the Christian Iraqis in the UK, which aired on BBC Arabic TV on November 7, 2010:

Archbishop Athanasius Toma Daoud: For the past eight years, the lives of the Christians in Iraq have had no protection, and there is no plan to help them after all that suffering. Many of them were killed, and many were deported, even though Iraq is our country, and we are proud to belong to it.

Nevertheless, when we realized that there was no one to protect us... I told the UK government and the European countries that if they did not protect us in Iraq, the Iraqi Christians would emigrate, so that at the very least, they would be able to live in peace and security. I said that this would be better than being killed one after the other.

Now, there is a new plan – a plan to kill us by the dozens. They enter our churches, they blow up the worshippers, and they force them to convert. We are prepared to sacrifice everything, except for our belief in Christ.

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