“The Hungarian Government is supporting the most endangered Christian communities, and has spent some 2.5 billion forints (EUR 8 million) for this purpose since the Deputy State Secretariat for the Aid of Persecuted Christians was established roughly a year ago”, Deputy State Secretary Tristan Azbej told Hungarian news agency MTI on Wednesday.

The Deputy State Secretary for the Aid of Persecuted Christians also said that the State Secretariat has spent some 2 billion forints on assisting the most endangered Christian communities, while a further 500 million forints were provided for this purpose via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. “The number of persecuted or discriminated Christians in the world is estimated at around 100 million, meaning that four out of every five people who are being persecuted because of their faith are Christian”, he said.

With relation to major funding programmes, Mr. Asbej told the press that one million euros each had been provided to enable the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Syriac Catholic Church to contribute to supporting people who have been driven from their homes by the war, a nursery school in Beirut has been renovated, and a home for refugees in the Beqaa valley, also in Lebanon, will be opened next year thanks to funding from the Hungarian Government. Following the advance of the Islamic State terrorist organisation and several sieges, the Government has provided 580 million forints for the reconstruction of the village of Tel Eskof in Northern Iraq, which is populated exclusively by Christians, thanks to which one thousand of the settlement’s 1300 inhabitants have already returned to their homes, he added.

145 million forints in funding from the Hungarian Government has enabled the Saint Joseph Hospital in Erbil to be the region’s only free hospital for a period of six months, in addition to which the Government also supplemented the 80 million forints in donations collected by the Catholic Church by a further 120 million forints to enable the construction of a school in the city, the Deputy State Secretary continued.

Mr. Azbej also told the press that some eighty young people from the Middle East and North and Central Africa are taking part in the Government’s scholarship programme, to enable them to use their European-level knowledge to help rebuild their countries, which have been ravaged by civil war or genocide.

Hungary’s most important goal is to enable Christians who are persecuted or suffer discrimination to remain in the land of their birth, and this is why the Programme is also being extended to Nigeria, where Boko Haram poses a danger to Christians.

“Through its actions on the international arena, the Government has succeeded in drawing attention to the issue of persecuted Christians, and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has also praised Hungary’s aid policy, indicating that the U.S. Government is also planning to launch a similar system”, the Deputy State Secretary said.

“The success of the Government’s funding policy is related to the fact that we personally collect first-hand information on the situation of persecuted Christians”, he said, explaining that this was why government representatives had travelled to Beirut and Erbil on several occasions since October 2016 to meet members of local refugee communities and Church leaders, and become familiar with the situation of people in need to enable the provision of direct aid that conforms to requirements.

“It is also the Deputy State Secretariat’s responsibility to represent persecuted Christians on international forums, in the interest of which officials have attended various international conferences in Vienna, Brussels, The Hague, Krakow, Rome, the Vatican and Washington to speak about the atrocities suffered by Christians”. Mr. Azbej said.

“The efficient use of funding is important to the Government, as is the fact that aid must be primarily received by people in need. Accordingly, while we have provided several billions of forints to persecuted Christian communities, our foreign travel expenses were less than three and a half million forints (EUR 11,200)”, Deputy State Secretary for the Aid of Persecuted Christians Tristan Azbej told MTI.

(MTI)