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I guarantee you won't hear this on your Nightly News...
'They are savages,' say Christians forced to flee Mosul by ISS
Iraqi Christians who were forced to flee the northern city of Mosul under threat of forced conversion or execution by jihadists have spoken of their terror as churches were turned into mosques and their homes and property confiscated.
The expulsion of one of the world's oldest Christian communities provoked condemnation and anguish from figures as diverse as the pope and Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who lambasted the Islamic State (Isis) for its "criminality and terrorism".
Last weekend Isis gave the city's Christians a stark choice: convert to Islam, pay a religious tax, or face death. "They said there is no place for Christians in the Islamic state," one distraught refugee said from the safety of Bashiqa, 16 miles from Mosul. "Either you become Muslim or you leave." Mosul's last 1,500 Christian families were reportedly robbed at Isis checkpoints as they fled.
Hundreds have found shelter in areas between Mosul and Irbil – the capital of the Kurdistan regional government – that are controlled by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, but they face an uncertain future.
"If Isis stays, there is no way the Christians can return," Father Boutrous Moshi said from Qara Qoosh, a Christian area south-east of Mosul. "It is up to God whether we return or not. They have not burned the churches but they did set fire to the pictures and the books and broke the windows."
Monks at the 4th-century Mar Behnam monastery, a major pilgrimage site run by the Syriac Catholic church, were allowed to take only the clothes they were wearing.
Sarab Hazem, from the Zehoor neighbourhood of Mosul, said that initially there were no attacks on Christians when Isis took the city in a lightning offensive in June, though Isis fighters did capture and take away police, security agents and soldiers. "No one knows what becomes of them," he said.
Then, statues of Christ and the Virgin Mary were destroyed. "They are savages," Hazem said. "This is oppression for no reason. I believe it is no longer possible for Christians to live in Iraq."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...tians-mosul-isis-convert-islam-or-be-executed
'They are savages,' say Christians forced to flee Mosul by ISS
Iraqi Christians who were forced to flee the northern city of Mosul under threat of forced conversion or execution by jihadists have spoken of their terror as churches were turned into mosques and their homes and property confiscated.
The expulsion of one of the world's oldest Christian communities provoked condemnation and anguish from figures as diverse as the pope and Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who lambasted the Islamic State (Isis) for its "criminality and terrorism".
Last weekend Isis gave the city's Christians a stark choice: convert to Islam, pay a religious tax, or face death. "They said there is no place for Christians in the Islamic state," one distraught refugee said from the safety of Bashiqa, 16 miles from Mosul. "Either you become Muslim or you leave." Mosul's last 1,500 Christian families were reportedly robbed at Isis checkpoints as they fled.
Hundreds have found shelter in areas between Mosul and Irbil – the capital of the Kurdistan regional government – that are controlled by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, but they face an uncertain future.
"If Isis stays, there is no way the Christians can return," Father Boutrous Moshi said from Qara Qoosh, a Christian area south-east of Mosul. "It is up to God whether we return or not. They have not burned the churches but they did set fire to the pictures and the books and broke the windows."
Monks at the 4th-century Mar Behnam monastery, a major pilgrimage site run by the Syriac Catholic church, were allowed to take only the clothes they were wearing.
Sarab Hazem, from the Zehoor neighbourhood of Mosul, said that initially there were no attacks on Christians when Isis took the city in a lightning offensive in June, though Isis fighters did capture and take away police, security agents and soldiers. "No one knows what becomes of them," he said.
Then, statues of Christ and the Virgin Mary were destroyed. "They are savages," Hazem said. "This is oppression for no reason. I believe it is no longer possible for Christians to live in Iraq."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...tians-mosul-isis-convert-islam-or-be-executed
