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MIDDLE EAST: TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CHRISTIANS LIVING IN SYRIA AND IRAQ FLEE AMID ONGOING TARGETED VIOLENCE

BosNewsLife and DAVID ADAMS report on the situation facing Christians living in Syria and Iraq…

BosNewsLife (with DAVID ADAMS)

Christians living in Syria and neighboring Iraq are facing more upheaval after an Islamic group expelled tens of thousands of residents from their homes and crucified at least nine people.

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has reportedly forced some 30,000 people to leave their houses in the eastern Syrian town of Shuheil. Many fear their homes will be looted, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a respected monitoring group.

 

“In 10 years there will perhaps be 50,000 Christians left…Prior to 2003, this figure was about 1.2 million. Within 10 years we have shrunk to a community of perhaps four to five hundred thousand faithful.”

– Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, head of the Chaldean-Catholic Church.

ISIS, which declared the territory in Syria and Iraq a “caliphate,” or Islamic state, also nailed nine men to a cross in Syria’s Aleppo province last week as punishment for rebellion, several sources said.

Usually the men ISIS crucifies are shot in the head first, then hung for public viewing with their arms tied to a horizontal beam, according to observers familiar with the situation.

However one of the nine men was “crucified alive for eight hours” in the town of al-Bab, said the Syrian Observatory. The report didn’t specify if the man was killed.

It was unclear whether Syrian troops, who apparently advanced in and around the northern city of Aleppo on Monday, 7th July, would be able to halt the ISIS fighters. Yet, most Christians have already been forced to flee Syria and Iraq, where the head of the Chaldean-Catholic Church, Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, fears Christian life will eventually come to an end in the region.

“In 10 years there will perhaps be 50,000 Christians left” in Iraq, he said in a statement released by Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need and obtained by BosNewsLife. “Prior to 2003, this figure was about 1.2 million. Within 10 years we have shrunk to a community of perhaps four to five hundred thousand faithful,” he added.

“When I was in Turkey recently ten Christian families from Mosul arrived. And in the space of only one week twenty families left Alqosh, a completely Christian town not far from Mosul. This is very serious, we are losing our community.”

ISIS follows terror group al-Qaida’s hard-line Islamic ideology. It draws heavily on foreign fighters, recruiting them through social media and websites such as YouTube.

Analysts say the military gains by ISIS have underscored how the conflict in Iraq is intertwined with civil war in Syria, which killed more than 160,000 people and displaced nearly a third of Syria’s 23 million population.

Sako fears Iraq will soon fall apart. “At present there are three fragments of Iraq, a Sunni one, a Kurdish one and a Shiite one. The Kurds already enjoy autonomy anyway. The Shiites do as well in a sense. Now the Sunnis are following suit. Iraq will therefore be divided up.”

The bishop condemned Western states who he said “find football” in the current World Cup “more interesting than the situation here or in Syria.”

He said Western policy only pursues economic interests. “The international community should put pressure on Iraqi politicians to make them find a political solution and form a government of national unity.”

Sako views the Sunni oriented ISIS as a global security threat. The group, he added, “intends to found an Islamic state with oil wells in order to Islamize the world. I think this is a danger for all.”

In an open letter published last week, a group representing Assyrian Christians from 12 Western nations has called for politicians to take action to protect Assyrian Christians in Iraq and Syria who it says are facing “genocide”.

Meanwhile, in an open letter published last week, a group representing Assyrian Christians from 12 Western nations including Australia, the US, UK, Canada, Sweden and the Netherlands, has called for politicians to take action to protect Assyrian Christians in Iraq and Syria who it says are facing “genocide”.

The group says Assyrians in Iraq and northern Syria have become the “victims of daily kidnappings, robberies, rapes, and murders”. 

“Assyrians are being violently targeted for their religion, and have absolutely no means of self-defense, let alone legal or political recourse,” it says in the letter, noting that the most recent events follow a “broader pattern of terror unleashed against Iraqi Christians” since 2003.

“Seventy-three churches have been attacked or bombed across Iraq. Dozens of priests have been kidnapped or murdered. Thousands of Assyrians have been the victims of violence, and regions and cities, including Baghdad, have been largely emptied of their indigenous Christian inhabitants.”

The group warns that a ” similarly grim fate is being forced upon the Assyrians of Syria as large swathes of that country fall to Islamist militants”. 

“More than half the Christians of Iraq have fled, and the same exodus is being repeated in Syria. For the first time in history, there are more Assyrians in diaspora than in their ancient homelands of Iraq and Syria.”

The group say that while the Western media “has long been silent regarding our plight” and political support “even less forthcoming”, “it is no longer possible for those who possess political influence to claim ignorance of the urgent crisis facing Assyrians” and calls on politicians to “mount a desperately needed case on our behalf”.

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