U.S. Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.) is calling for more U.S. and international aid to Christian refugees living in Erbil, a city located in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Smith, who chairs both the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe and the House panel on global human rights and international organizations, visited the city and refugee camps just days before Christmas.

He was invited to Erbil by Archbishop Bashar Warda, head of the Erbil Archdiocese, he said.

Smith said Christians are facing a "genocide" at the hands of ISIS, and have been mostly overlooked by the Obama administration.

"I met with Christian families who survived the ISIS genocide and have been ignored for two years by the Obama Administration," Smith said. "I hope that President-elect Trump will act urgently to make sure his administration helps these Christians with the funds Congress has approved for survivors of ISIS atrocities.”

The Chaldean Catholic Archdiocese of Erbil has provided most of the assistance to these displaced Christians, according to Smith.

He said there were as many as 1.4 million Christians in Iraq in 2002, but after years of sectarian conflict, followed by what he said is "the ISIS genocide" beginning in 2014, Christian numbers have dropped to less than 250,000.

Most have fled to the Erbil, which now hosts more than 70,000 internally displaced Christians, almost a third of all Christians in Iraq, he said. Others have fled to Europe.

He is also urging the United Nations to not exclude Christians from its findings of ISIS genocide victims.

“It would be outrageous if the UN ignored the overwhelming evidence and turned its back on these people who have suffered so much.”

Dan Radel: 732-643-4072; dradel@gannettnj.com

This article originally ran on page 3 of the Jan. 3, 2017 print edition of the Asbury Park Press, and can be found online at: http://www.app.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/02/congressman-smith-calls-aid-christians-iraq/96078444