Qasha said ISIS members gave him a week to think about it; the threat was made with a gun pointed at his head. Qasha is an elderly man and is paralyzed. He was helped away from Qaraqosh by a friend - in his wheelchair. He managed to find his grandson, who took him to the predominantly Christian suburb of Ankawa in Erbil province, the capital of the Kurdistan Region.
According to MCN Direct, other refugees from a district in Nineveh, as well as Qaraqosh and Bartella, say ISIS has now started giving all non-Muslims a one-week deadline to convert. Qasha's neighbor, a young man who fled the city this week, said he was hiding in his home with his father when IS members found them on August 17. They gave him a week, until August 24, to convert to Islam or be killed. 70,000 Christians have arrived in Ankawa, the Christian area of Erbil, and there are 60,000 displaced in Dohuk, says Louis Sako, Patriarch of the Chaldean Church in Iraq. Dohuk is primarily populated by Kurds and Assyrians and is located in the northern part of the autonomous region of Kurdistan, while Qaraqosh, a city of about 50,000 inhabitants in the province of Nineveh, lies between Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, and Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region, to the east.
Islamic State captured Mosul in June. At the time, there were 3500 Christians living there who fled east to Qaraqosh, often described as the Christian capital of Iraq. Of those 3500, around 25 chose to stay in their homes in Mosul. Since then, nine have converted to Islam and the rest pay jizya - the Islamic tax for non-Muslims.
Church reaches out to displaced people
In our project, relief is provided through the church in Iraq. The church in Iraq also provides help to other displaced people. Although the Iraqi Christians are under extreme pressure, it is touching to see that they are not only thinking of themselves, but reaching out to others in desperate need and providing hope.
Thank you for donating to help our Christian brothers and sisters and others in need. It costs around 550 DKK to provide an Iraqi refugee family with food, medicine, clothing and water for a month.
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