Christians used to account for about 4% of the population but their numbers dramatically dwindled after the US invasion of the nation in 2003 (Chanaa 15).
Currently, the proportion of Iraqi Christian immigrants has significantly increased owing to a number of political and social factors. First, Iraq has always given Christians a minority status in which they feel as though they are second class citizens who are vulnerable to injustices at any time. Furthermore, the law has historically minimised their ability to express themselves freely in the nation even though this has often been disguised by constitutional provisions that claim to respect the freedom of conscience (Salloum 60).
In the political arena, Christians are scarcely afforded the right to become leaders in government, security organs or the military. Such institutional discrimination has ensured that Christians in this nation lack the ability to become influential in their society, so a number of them now have an even greater impetus to leave Iraq. Many Christians have not forgotten the history of oppression that they have been subjected especially in 1915, 1933, 1961 and 1975. All these attacks created numerous villages of Iraqi immigrants in Syria and other surrounding nations. The 1975 incident was accompanied by the burning of Christian villages that caused the displacement of thousands of Iraqi Christians (Rassam 23).
Continued discrimination and persecution of Christians was revived in 2003 after the US-led invasion against Iraq and Afghanistan. this chaos and sectarian violence heightened in 2006.