Hungary and the United States have partnered in an alliance to assist Christians in the Middle East, helping them “recover from genocide and persecution by the Islamic State”.

On Tuesday, the government of Hungary and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) “to increase coordination to help communities in the Middle East recover from genocide and persecution by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).”

According to a statement from the Hungarian government, the agreement between the two nations follows Hungary’s stated strategy of taking assistance “to the troubled spots where it’s needed, instead of bringing the trouble and instability to Europe.”

The MOU establishes an “official partnership” between the government of Hungary’s Secretariat for the Aid of Persecuted Christians and the US international assistance agency, the statement said.

In its own separate statement, USAID said that the agreement with Hungary is “part of USAID’s continuing effort to expand its partnerships to help endangered, displaced, and persecuted religious and ethnic minorities return home and restore their communities across the Middle East, particularly in parts of Northern Iraq liberated from the tyranny of ISIS.”

In 2016, the Hungarian government established a Deputy State Secretariat for the Aid of Persecuted Christians, making it the only nation in the world with a department of this nature.

The secretariat has sent assistance worth millions of euros to rebuild homes, churches, and schools so that Christians can stay in their homes in the Middle East, and has granted dozens of scholarships to Christian students in Africa and the Middle East who suffered persecution from militant Islamic terror groups.

Last June, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Péter Szijjártó, told Breitbart News that Hungary is proud to focus its attention on persecuted Christians.

“We are a Christian country,” Szijjártó said, “and that’s why we have a special responsibility to protect our Christians brothers and sisters all around the world.”

“If we don’t protect them, who will protect them? If you don’t speak in favour of them, who will speak in favour of them?” he said.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said that in assisting persecuted Christians Hungary has taken the opposite approach from that of the European Union.

“They want to bring people here,” Orbán declared. “We are helping them to stay where they are,” Mr Orbán said at a conference in Budapest in October 2017.

Rather than rely on official channels, the Hungarian government has been channeling funds directly to Christian leaders and organizations on the ground in the Middle East, who best know how to make the financing reach their people.

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