Mags GarganRadical group controls huge swaths of Syria and Iraq
With the world’s attention focused on Gaza’s increasingly desperate situation, some in Iraq feel that brutal Islamist militants can do whatever they want and literally get away with murder.
Serving in some of the worst violence in Iraq over the past decade, Rev. Andrew White, an Anglican canon at St George’s Church in Baghdad, said more than 1,500 were people killed in late July in the violence in Iraq perpetrated by Islamic State extremists.
“The Islamic State simply said we can do anything now the world is just looking at Gaza,” Rev. White wrote of the precarious conditions faced by Iraq’s historic Christian community.
He said the radical group now controls huge swaths of eastern Syria and northern and central Iraq.
“In reality that is true. Iraq seems like old news, yet things just get worse and worse here,” said Rev. White, who also directs the British-based charity, Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East.
“It is as if hell has broken out here and nobody cares, that is, apart from you, our supporters, who never leave us and keep supporting us in every way,” he said in a message to patrons.
“The situation is so serious and it is very easy to feel forgotten,” he said.
Crisis
Iraq was thrown back into crisis in mid-June after thousands of armed members of the Islamic State moved from Syria through much of northern Iraq, killing both Muslims and Christians.
On June 29, the Islamist militants proclaimed a ‘caliphate,’ an Islamic state led by a religious leader, across the territories they had captured, including the city of Mosul, the ancient Christian heartland in Iraq.
In late July, the Islamic State released a new video depicting the group carrying out mass executions and warning Iraqi soldiers and others who dare to resist that they will be rounded up and killed.
Rev. White and his congregation, in addition to numerous Catholic institutions, continue to provide support to tens of thousands of Christians forced to flee the northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Ninevah.
The Islamic State extremists told the Christians they had three options: Convert, pay an Islamic tax or leave.
“Even here in Baghdad, people are terrified of what is happening around us,” Rev. White said, adding that many parishioners have left or are planning to leave Iraq’s beleaguered capital.
Archbishop Maroun Lahham, patriarchal vicar for Jordan in the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, pleaded for prayers for Iraq, Gaza, Syria and Libya during a special Mass in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
“The oppressors do not last. We ask God to remove the fear from the hearts of the oppressors so as to become a party that believes in peace and is capable of making peace,” Archbishop Lahham said in his homily, asking prayers for peoples’ survival.
The Catholic leader underscored that violence only begets more violence and said the vicious cycle in the Middle East must be broken.
The archbishop said God’s help is needed to change hearts into those who seek and are committed to making peace in these very troubled lands.