All news

Iraq's minority Sabean-Mandeans seek Kurdistan safe haven

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.