My commentary on The Sunday Times of Malta (August, 3) was headed “The shame in attacking sleeping children.” The quote was taken from Ban-ki Moon’s statement about what the Israelis were doing in Gaza. Children were in the line of fire.
The heading of this piece is equally, if not more shocking. It is taken from what Mark Arabo, a Californian businessman and Chaldean-American leader told CNN during an interview with Jonathan Mann. The quote is shocking.
"They are systematically beheading children," Arabo repeated slowly. "And mothers and fathers. The world hasn't seen an evil like this for generations."
"There's actually a park in Mosul where they actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick... this is crimes against humanity. They are doing the most horrendous, the most heart-breaking crimes that you can think of."
A search of Youtube gives credence to what Arabo is saying. One can see horrible videos showing heads on spikes and live beheadings. One Christian was forced to say that 'there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet' in the hope of avoiding death, only to be instantly beheaded.
Truth be told it is not only Christian in general and children in particular who are in the line of fire. The Yazidi, who adhere to an ancient religion related to Zoroastrianism, and their children are suffering the same fate.
Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Eastern Catholic church to which the majority of Iraq’s Christians belong, also issued an appeal on August 7. The following excerpts witness the tragedy that Christians are passing through.
“The ISIS militants attacked with mortars most of the villages of the plain of Nineveh, during the night of 6th-7th of August and now they are controlling the area. The Christians, about 100,000, horrified and panicked, fled their villages and houses [with] nothing but the clothes on their backs. …. An exodus, a real via crucis, Christians are walking on foot in Iraq's searing summer heat towards the Kurdish cities of Erbil, Duhok and Soulaymiyia, the sick, the elderly, infants and pregnant women among them. They are facing a human catastrophe and risk a real genocide. They need water, food, shelter.”
The Patriarch lamented not only that the Central Government is incapable of enforcing law and order in this part of the country but that there are also doubts about the capacity of the Kurdistan Region alone to defend the fierce advance of the jihadists.
The Patriarch made this heart-felt appeal:
“We appeal with sadness and pain to the conscience of all and all people of good will and the United Nations and the European Union, to save these innocent persons from death. We hope it is not too late!”
Please keep the Iraqi Christians in your prayers.