Almas Shaya, a member of Michigan's Chaldean community, who are Iraqi Catholics, prays during a rally in Detroit Nov. 8, 2010. The rally was to express anger and frustration over what they describe as a lack of protection for Christians in Iraq. (Paul Sancya/AP)
ishtartv.com - https://www.newsmax.com
Thursday,
11 Jan 2018
The
Trump administration has reached a deal with the United Nation's international
development agency to provide more funding for ethnic and religious minorities
in Iraq — and it was Vice President Mike Pence who galvanized the aid, Fox
News reported.
The
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) said Monday that $55
million of a $75 million tranche of aid money to the UN Development Program's
Funding Facility for Stabilization will go to addressing minority groups in
areas of northern Iraq retaken from ISIS.
The
deal came more than two months after Pence announced that the United States
would stop funding "ineffective" UN relief programs.
In
an October speech at the In Defense of Christians annual Solidarity Dinner for
Christians in the Middle East, Pence decried what he said was U.N. agencies'
collective failure to effectively assist religious minorities — particularly
Christians — in Iraq.
"Those days are over," he said at the time,
The Hill reported.
"Our
fellow Christians and all who are persecuted in the Middle East should not have
to rely on multinational institutions when America can help them
directly."
Fox
News reported Pence's call for change and criticism of UN action sparked new
action, including a five-day trip to the suffering region by USAID counselor
Tom Staal, the agency's highest ranking career foreign service officer.
The trip was followed by meetings at the White House and on Capitol Hill that
added further to the aid package. Above and beyond the refocusing the $150
million, another $10 million to $10.5 million of emergency humanitarian
assistance had been sent to the beleaguered communities, Fox News reported.
Beyond
that, $10 million in State Department in discretionary funding aimed at such
things as combating the effects of gender-based violence resulting from ISIS
horrifying campaign of rape and kidnapping of sex slaves from the Christian and
Yazidi populations, Fox News reported.
"We
are very confident that not only will U.S. funds go more directly toward
assisting persecuted religious minorities — the U.N. is also stepping up to the
plate to further fund effective programs that directly go to communities —
particularly in Iraq," an unnamed White House official told Fox News.
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