Catholics rally to aid the displaced in Iraq

Sr. Ferdos Zora sings along with students April 7 in a preschool for displaced children run by the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena in Ankawa, Iraq. (CNS/Paul Jeffrey)

by Tom Gallagher | Jul. 2, 2016

ERBIL, IRAQ The fate of some 120,000 displaced Iraqi Christians is being held hostage by uncertainty. Since the genocidal attacks by the Islamic State on Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, and nearby Qaraqosh, its largest Christian city, two years ago, causing a desperate flight to safety in the Ankawa district of Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, it's clear that the displaced are not returning home any time soon, as ISIS continues to control both towns. It's anybody's guess as to when it will be safe to return home.

In March, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry declared that the Islamic State group, also called Daesh, is committing genocide against Christians, Yazidis and Shiite Muslims in Iraq and Syria.

"Daesh is genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology, and by actions -- in what it says, what it believes, and what it does," Kerry said in a March 17 press briefing.

"Daesh captured and enslaved thousands of Yezidi women and girls -- selling them at auction, raping them at will, and destroying the communities in which they had lived for countless generations," he said.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/global/catholics-rally-aid-displaced-iraq