BAGHDAD, June 22, 2006 (AFP) , --
Baghdad's entire Sabean-Mandean population estimated at 25,000 has
presented a petition to Kurdish authorities to move to the northern
region's safe haven, an Arab League official said Thursday.
"During a recent visit to Kurdistan, I found out that all members of
the Sabean-Mandean community in Baghdad... have asked for mass
immigration to the region," the head of the league's mission to Iraq
Mokhtar Lamani told AFP.
Representatives of the community were not immediately available for
comment.
Lamani said that 3,500 Christian families have fled to Kurdistan
from the violence-plagued capital after receiving threats, which has
enjoyed a defacto autonomy from the centre since the Gulf War in
1991.
It is believed there are about 60,000 Sabean-Mandeans left in Iraq
with many concentrated in the southern provinces around the
marshlands. The community, which reveres Christian disciple John the
Baptist, moved to Mesopotamia from Jerusalem in the second century
AD to flee persecution by orthodox Jews.
The ancient religion combines Babylonian, pre-Islamic, Persian and
Christian beliefs.
Among its holiest periods are the "five white days" in spring when
hundreds of men and women draped in white cloth plunge themselves in
the Tigris in elaborate baptism rituals.
It is estimated that more than 100,000 people have been displaced in
Iraq as a result of the sectarian violence that has not only
affected the Shiites and Sunnis -- the two majority communities --
but minorities like the Christians and others.
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