Russian Orthodox Church blames the US for migration crisis on Belarus and EU border

This statement is reported by Religiyna Pravda citing the ROC website.

“The reason for the global humanitarian crisis that has engulfed the countries of the Middle East is primarily the interference in the political situation of a number of Middle Eastern countries of Western states, and first of all the United States of America,” Hilarion said.

According to him, during the time of Saddam Hussein, Christians in Iraq lived in peace.

“I always consider this situation from the perspective of a Christian presence, because our direct interlocutors in the Middle East are representatives of Christian communities. If we talk, for example, about the situation in Iraq, then there was a regime that the United States declared dictatorial and anti-national. Whether it was like this or not is a question that political scientists can answer, but the Christians who lived there under Saddam Hussein lived in peace. There were one and a half million Christians there. After Saddam Hussein's regime was overthrown, terrorists raised their heads there, attacked the homes of Christians, killed them, and expelled them from their homes. They were forced mainly to leave Iraq — from one and a half million now, at best, one-tenth of this number remains,” the hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church said.

He noted that “the migration crisis that has now gripped many European countries is directly related to what the United States of America has been doing in the Middle East over the past two decades.”