An archbishop and religious sister from the Middle East issued a stark warning to UK Parliamentarians that Christians in the region are still suffering persecution because of their faith.

Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, Iraq, thanked charities for helping rebuild schools, saying that investment in education for Iraqi Christians has helped fight the genocide undertaken by Daesh (ISIS).

He said: “If our children lose their schools, that’s the genocide, wiping out the past, the present and the future. So we hold to the future. Thank you to ACN [Aid to the Church in Need] for being the voice for the persecuted Christians.”

Sister Annie Demerjian of Aleppo, Syria, who has ministered to suffering Christians since the start of the civil war in 2011, said that the faithful are now struggling even more now.

She said: “Now the situation is worse than during the time of war and as our nuncio Cardinal Zenari said, 90 percent of the population is under the poverty line.

“We are heading for a humanitarian disaster and yet the world is not listening and is not hearing. The media is not hearing about Syria, it is not interested anymore.”