News Links and Important Video At End of Article
News Release : Jun 27, 2014 : PR Newswire/US Newswire
The attack "portends a
humanitarian catastrophe for all the people in the Nineveh Plain, and a
disastrous emigration of Christians out of the country." -Hammurabi
Human Rights Organization
(Erbil,
Iraq) - Over 50,000 Iraqis, mainly Christians, from the Nineveh
township of Qaraqosh, 12 miles east of Iraq's second-largest city Mosul,
were displaced the night of June 25 as a result of shelling by the
armed forces of the Sunni extremist Islamic State
in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The township includes the historic Christian
villages of Keremles and Bartella. With the collapse of the Iraqi army
in Mosul earlier this month, the only armed defenders of Qaraqosh are
members of the Kurdish Pershmerga militia. (Photo courtesy: PR Newswire)
A
Christian Solidarity International (CSI) team is in the area to assist
with relief efforts. According to CSI's local partner, the Hammurabi
Human Rights Organization, the ISIS attack against Qaraqosh "portends a
humanitarian catastrophe for all the people in the Nineveh Plain, and a
disastrous emigration of Christians out of the country."
"Those who had cars drove. Those who didn't went on foot," a local Iraqi Christian told CSI.
The displaced have taken refuge in churches
and monasteries across the Kurdish-controlled region, threatening to
overwhelm NGOs and local administrators who were already dealing with a
humanitarian crisis after the fall of Mosul on June 11.
After taking control of Mosul, ISIS
militants cut off electricity and running water to Qaraqosh and the
surrounding areas, putting pressure on local residents to leave their
homes. Following this assault, nearly the entire population of Qaraqosh
has fled. Local sources indicate that less than a hundred elderly and
infirm have remained behind out of an initial population of 45,000.
Non-Christians in the multi-cultural
Nineveh Province are also under threat from ISIS. They include Yezidis,
Shiites, and liberal Muslims, all of whom ISIS regards as infidels
without human rights.
ISIS is an al Qaida-inspired terrorist
group that has controlled large swathes of eastern Syria for over a
year, and has made major territorial advances in Iraq in the last month.
In areas under its control in Syria, ISIS has desecrated churches,
executed religious minorities, abducted and killed priests, and ordered
Christians to choose between converting to Islam, paying the
traditional jizya tax, or "facing the sword." Thousands of Iraqi
Christians fled Mosul for Qaraqosh after ISIS took over the city on June
11, and ISIS later claimed to have executed 1,700 Shi'a Muslims in the
city.
Since the commencement of the US-led
Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, more than two-thirds
of Iraq's Christian population has fled the country to escape a campaign
of targeted abductions, assassinations and church attacks. Many who
remained in Iraq found refuge in Qaraqosh and other nearby predominantly
Christian villages.
"With the targeting of one of Iraqi
Christians' last safe places," Dr. John Eibner, CEO of CSI-USA, warned,
"the Iraqi Christian community is closer than ever to extinction."
NEWS LINKS
Several shocking ISIS-Related stories HERE
PLUS.....
ISIS Releases 5-Year Plan For Caliphate Stretching From Spain to China!
DAHBOO7 VERY Interesting video (5 min) Incl. ISIS MAP, Jesuits, ROME
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