Christians in Iraq have been forced to flee Mosul with nothing but the clothes they wore after the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) issued this statement to Christians: convert to Islam, pay a tax, or die.
Zaid Qreqosh Ishaq, 27, fled from Mosul with his family after receiving ISIS’ ultimatum.
“We had to go through an area where they had set up a checkpoint,” he said. ISIS militants “asked us to get out of the car. We got out. They took…our things, our bags, our money, everything we had on us.”
They took refuge at the St. Joseph Church in the Kurdish city of Irbil, but they may be forced to move on as the violence follows them.
Nawzad Hadi, Irbil’s governor, pledged to protect Christians and other minority groups fleeing Isis. Around two million refugees from Iraq and Syria call Irbil home.
France offered refuge to Christians fleeing from Iraq and ISIS.
“We are providing aid to displaced people fleeing from the threats,” France’s foreign and interior ministers said in a joint statement. “We are ready, if they wish, to facilitate their asylum on our soil.”
Another Christian from Mosul, Noel Ibrahim, said that while he was fleeing with his family a group of ISIS members stopped them and stole cash and gold from the women.
“One of the gunmen told us, ‘You can leave now, but do not ever dream of returning to Mosul again,” Ibrahim said.
ISIS told Christians in a statement: “We offer them three choices: Islam; the dhimma contract—involving payment of the jizya; if they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword.”
The dhimma is a historic contract that says any non-Muslims living in a Muslim country who refuse to convert to Islam must pay the jizya tax if they wish to ensure their safety.
ISIS believes they have the right to make this demand because in June they declared a caliphate, an Islamic state ruled by one leader.
The Muslim jihadists have since converted churches into mosques and confiscated the homes and properties of Christians.
In order to know which properties they are confiscating, the jihadists have been marking Christians’ homes with the letter N for “Nassarah,” the term used for Christians in the Koran.
Patriarch Louis Soko, one of the most senior Christian clerics in Iraq, said that “for the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians.” Approximately 10,000 Christians have fled Mosul after Isis took control in early June.
Once home to a thriving Christian population, Iraq now has around 35,000 Christians as compared to the 60,000 that lived there before 2003. This number began to decline in 2003 when the U.S. invaded Iraq.
Pope Francis, along with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, have pleaded for help from the U.S. for these Christians, but President Barack Obama and other Western leaders have remained silent on the issue.
Among other travesties, ISIS destroyed the Biblical prophet Jonah’s tomb, which is located in Mosul. They allegedly put dynamite around the tomb and detonated it by remote control.
By destroying Jonah’s tomb, one of the last physical traces of Iraq’s Christian heritage, the members of ISIS are directly attacking the Christian faith.
Mosul is the second-largest city in Iraq and partially rests on the site for the ancient city of Ninevah, the ancient capital of Assyria and the setting of Jonah’s story.
Isis issued a similar statement in February to the city of Raqqa in Syria. They told Christians to pay half an ounce (14g) of pure gold in order to secure their safety.
The Islamic State group says it will continue its offensive until it reaches Baghdad, although its progress seems to have slowed after taking over Iraq’s Sunni areas.
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Why hasn’t western governments stepped in?
Our forces fought to stabilise the country and now its as lawless as ever
Very sad
Do you really believe that “stepping in” would help ? What exactly would you have us do when we stepped ?
Maybe sending a gunboat to Mosul is what’s needed.
Our Government could at least offer the Iraqi Christians asylum, as the US has done.
I wonder how they would have come, and if they would have been allowed to come.
watch Afganiistan in a year or two it will also implode! Very few Christians there so we wont see this terrible slaughter of our brothers and sisters. Where are the left/PC rent a mob to protest over Isis /Iraq? Sorry, silly me its not pc to worry about the rights of Christians only Palestinians and sodomites warrant / qualify for street protests!
Some Palestinians are Christians,
And their Muslim neighbours hate them.
Palestinian Muslims and Christians (and Jews) lived in perfect harmony pre-1948.
Post -1948, Israeli settlers and the new Israeli government visited great evil on the Palestinian people.
The USA gave 100% support to Israeli actions (largely because of the power of the American Jewish lobby e.g. A.I.P.A.C.)
Since these Palestinian Muslims believe the USA is a “Christian nation” they now see Christians as their enemy.
Exactly the same thing has happened to the Christians who lived in Iraq–explained to me in person by an Iraqi Christian exile.
So we are the cause of the disharmony.
None of this would have happened under Saddam Hussein who though a dictator kept Iraq together and brutally suppressed any group that threatened ethnic harmony.
Then in 2002 the famous US NEOCONS and their poodle Blair decided to invade and destroy the whole fabric of that nation using the utterly false accusation that it had W.M.D.
They knew full well that Iraq was an artificial construct and that removing the strongman would see the country fly apart ——which is exactly what has happened.
Using equally false pretexts these same NEOCONS have then gone on to do exactly the same thing to the people of Syria and Libya and are now seeking to visit the same fate on Ukraine (which could result in WW3)!
So lets remember that the culprits of all these human tragedies are our own governments who have a hidden agenda that they are not revealing to the public.
Doing something is better than doing nothing. ….but hey we dont
live there, we’re not getting forced from our home, or given a choice
to convert or die…..I suppose if you lived there rox you wouldn’t want
a so called progressive government to step in, what I’m trying to
say that it seems all our troops died in vain……very sad
All the muslims are requisted to visit the website http://www.islam-watch.org, and http://www.faithfreedom.org. Both the site are by ex-muslims who are having very deep knowledge of islam. How islam is wrong and how it teaches to dominate can clearly understood from this site. The non-muslims must visit this sites to become aware of this danger.