DAVID ADAMS reports…
The World Council of Churches has appealed to the United Nations to take an “immediate response” to the killing of Christians and others in northern Iraq and Syria.
In an open letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri, acting general secretary of the WCC, said the council was “deeply disturbed” by threats being faced by Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities at the hands of the extremist Islamic State.
“Churches and property belonging to religious communities are being desecrated and destroyed by ISIS, and ancient manuscripts have been burned as an assault on the people’s religious beliefs…(W)hole towns in northern Iraq have been emptied of their populations.”Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri, acting general secretary of the WCC |
“The international community recognises that nations have a responsibility to protect their most vulnerable citizens,” Dr Phiri said. “When a national government lacks the control necessary to ensure citizens’ rights and wellbeing, the responsibility is taken up by international bodies and their member states. We urge you to marshal all available resources to protect the people of Iraq in this hour.”
The appeal follows word from the Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon, Louis Raphael Sako, that during the night of 6th-7th August, ISIS militants conducted a mortar assault in the region of Nineveh in northern Iraq, driving as many as 100,000 Christians from their homes and villages.
The patriarch said those fleeing include the sick, elderly, infants and pregnant women and there is now an urgent need for water, food and shelter.
The report is the latest in increasingly dire news from the region where Islamic militants have been responsible for ongoing human rights abuses including executions, forced displacement of people and the seizing and desecration of property.
“Churches and property belonging to religious communities are being desecrated and destroyed by ISIS, and ancient manuscripts have been burned as an assault on the people’s religious beliefs,” said Dr Phiri. “According to the Chaldean archbishop of Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah, Joseph Thomas, whole towns in northern Iraq have been emptied of their populations.”
The WCC – whose member churches represent more than 500 million Christians around the world – have appealed for its member churches around the world to be praying for Christians and members of other vulnerable religious and ethnic communities suffering at the hands of the Islamic State.
Meanwhile Pope Francis this week also highlighted the situation in Iraq, asking Catholics around the world to pray for Christians in northern Iraq and for the international community to take steps to put an end to the crisis while last weekend, Christians around the world – including in Australian cities – joined in holding rallies in support of their brethren in the Middle East.
The UN this week highlighted the plight of people from the minority Yazidi group, with estimates that as many as 40,000 of them have taken refuge onto the peaks of Mt Sinjar with little food and shelter. The flight happened after Kurdish fighters suffered a setback in their ongoing fight with IS members, leaving the community exposed.
The Iraqi Government has conducted airdrops of aid to the displaced people but aid workers have said it is nowhere near enough.
