ISIS Invasion Traps Iraqi Christians in Their Own Country

We tried very hard, very hard to raise the banner. The world remained silent. Now the devastation is a gradual death.”

The voice of Juliana Taimoorazy, Founder and President of Iraqi Christian Relief Council, clears the clack-clack of roadway background noise. She is driving home from yet another conference concerning the suffering of her fellow Christians in Iraq.1 Yesterday, she met in D.C. with world leaders of the persecuted Yazidis, another Iraqi religious minority.

“The majority of death that happened in the Christian community was [around] 2005,” continues Taimoorazy, referring to earlier mass murder. Now at least one quarter of Iraq’s Christian population, offered only the options to convert or die, have fled to Iraq’s Kurdish north where they are crammed into schools and churches, sleeping in pews and courtyards. They own absolutely nothing. And the northern Kurdish government has just ordered all convents and schools to empty so school can begin. “The winter is upon them,” Taimoorazy explains, “The time aid gets to our people, they are dying…devastated. This is a human tragedy.”

Massacre is nothing new to Assyrian Christians. As a native but historically non-Arab community, they have always faced periodic persecution, especially after the rise of Islam. During the last decade, however, such genocide has garnered a new synonym—eradication. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) invasion of Iraq yanked loose the last Jenga block. Since it declared a Middle Eastern caliphate in June, ISIS has militarily claimed its nation city-by-city, imposing sharia law and driving Christians into the ever-shrinking shelter of northern Iraq and Syria. In the key town of Mosul, recently captured by ISIS forces, only forty Christians remain of the city’s original eight to ten thousand. In the words of Dr. Gary Burg, Professor of New Testament and Middle Eastern journalist for the Huffington Post, “We survived Genghis Khan,” Iraqi Christians declare, “but we’re not sure we can survive this.”

Face to face with extermination, some Iraqi Christians are reevaluating their traditional adherence to pacifism. Just recently, an independent and primarily symbolic band of forty Christians self-coined “Dukha,” or “Sacrifice,” allied with the Assyrian Patriotic Party, and then the Kurdish Peshmerga militia. They are not alone. Four thousand minority citizens, including Christians, have signed up to join an independent army that would unite with Kurdish forces. “Christians haven’t been shy about being armed,” Dr. Burge agrees. “We’re talking about the survival of a people.” Before they can actually defend themselves, however, the Kurds must provide the Christians with weapons and training; whether and when this will actually occur remains doubtful.

In the meantime, Christian refugees must survive trapped in an ever-tightening noose. One of the greatest immediate needs is funding for medical aid and food provisions, especially for local charities in Iraqi, which provide relief to minorities completely and directly. A more significant long-term solution, however, seems to require international political involvement. Iraqi Christians call for immediate intervention, petitioning specifically for an “internationally protected safe zone” as the best option for security. Taimoorazy expounds upon the reasoning behind this plea: “We need UN forces to be on the ground respecting Iraqi Christians,” she contends. “At least the world will see that our people are under UN protection.” It seems likely that NATO or the UN will agree to recognize and militarily supply such a minority coalition, if for no other reason than to protect the massive oil reserves concealed under Kurdish lands. Hopefully, equipped Kurdish and minority troops will repulse ISIS’s waves of assault, root out their guerrilla units, and eventually drive their military completely out of Iraq. Then the difficult process of politically reuniting the country’s factions can begin.

“I can tell you a horrific story,” Taimoorazy offers as our last few minutes, and miles, tick away. In 2004, two Christian sisters were headed home from their work on a protected base in Baghdad to prepare for a wedding. Abruptly, their taxi was skidded to a stop by ISIS militants. The cab driver was spared, but both women and their Muslim companion were shot dead, the latter simply because he had touched a Christian. Afterwards, these sisters’ devastated mother came to collect their remains from the hospital, only to discover hallways “packed with Christian bodies.” From this woman’s family of seven, only three members survived.

Now, a decade later, Taimoorazy argues that the Iraqi situation is different, but no better. ISIS atrocities may not consume Christian lives, but while the world waits and deliberates, Want and Syrian persecution finish the slaughter. Ultimately, “The silence is just as bloody.”

Source: http://blogs.christianpost.com/bindings/isis-invasion-traps-iraqi-christians-in-their-own-country-23435/