Canon Andrew White: ‘Things in Iraq are so bad now, the worst they have ever been.’
Thousands of Christians have fled Iraq’s second-largest city as an Islamist terror group solidifies its control over Christianity’s main remaining stronghold in the struggling nation.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), an Iraq and Syria-based Sunni offshoot of al-Qaeda, took over Mosul (pop. 1.8 million) earlier this month, the BBC reports.
Most of Mosul’s remaining Christian population of 3,000 fled for safer areas, according to World Watch Monitor.
All of Iraq is under a state of alert, according to the Iraqi government. Mosul itself is in a state of “anarchy,” with armed patrols on the streets and families holed up in homes. During the takeover, everything collapsed suddenly and “people entered without any problems or opposition,” Msgr. Shimoun Emil Nona, Chaldean archbishop of Mosul, told AsiaNews.
“Things are so bad now in Iraq, the worst they have ever been,” writes Canon Andrew White, vicar of St. George’s Anglican Church in Baghdad. “The Islamic terrorists have taken control of the whole of Mosul which is Nineveh the main Christian stronghold. The army [has] even fled. We urgently need help and support. … We are in a desperate crisis.”
ISIS, which wants to overthrow the Iraqi and Syrian Governments and establish a Sunni Muslim Caliphate in the Middle East, took military advantage of a political power vacuum as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki struggles to form a government after recent elections.
The region ISIS invaded has been a stronghold for Iraqi Christians, Middle East Concern reports:
Mosul and the surrounding Nineveh plain is the traditional heartland of Iraq’s Christian communities. Many Christians fled to …
from Christianity Today Magazine http://ift.tt/1kGRjRY
via IFTTT