I have just received this email from an Iraqi friend of mine. Together with his wife and children he lived in Malta in the 1990s. I had employed him with RTK, his profession being a transmitter’s engineer. Today he lives in Canada. His wife’s family hail from Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city . They had left the city a few years ago when it became too dangerous for Christians. Following the conquest of the city by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) life has become impossible for Christians.
The following is his appeal:
“The plight of Iraq's Christians has now lasted longer than a decade, and recent militant uprisings in Mosul threaten to expunge the neighbouring Chaldean-Assyrian-Syriac villages. This preliminary campaign will help kickstart a transnational movement focusing on development of a sovereign territory for the indigenous Iraqis.
That's why I signed a petition to The United States House of Representatives, The United States Senate, and President Barack Obama, which says:
"The imperative protection and preservation of the Iraqi Chaldo-Assyrian-Syriac communities in the North, the indigenous peoples of Mesopotamia "
Will you sign this petition? Click here:
Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church said that “the heinous crime of the Islamic State was carried out not just against Christians, but against humanity.”
The Iraqi Patriarch reported that Islamists were marking the homes of Christians in Mosul with the Arabic letter "N," standing for "Nazarene." The homes of Shi'ite Muslims were also being marked, with "R" for "Rejecter."
“Even Genghis Khan or Hulagu [his grandson] didn't do this,” the patriarch added.
Last Sunday the Pope spoke once more about the persecution of Christians in Mosul.
“I have learned with concern the news which reaches us from the Christian communities of Mosul and from other places in the Middle East, where since the beginning of Christianity, they have lived alongside their fellow citizens, making a significant contribution to the good of society,” he said. “Today they are persecuted, they are driven away, they have to leave their homes without the possibility of taking anything with them. To these families, to these people, I want to express my closeness and assure them of my constant prayer.”
“Beloved brothers and sisters who are so persecuted, I know how much you are suffering, I know that you have been stripped of everything,” he added. “I am with you in the faith of Him who has conquered evil!”