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Kidnapped. Tortured. Killed. The persecution of Christians in the world is experiencing cruelty that dwarfs those of the first centuries. The latest violence in order of time comes again from Syria where at dawn on Monday, as reported by Fides, forty pickup loads of militiamen Isis gave the assault on villages along Assyrian Christians the Khabur River, in the northeastern province of Jazira, not far from Kobane, the city conquered by the jihadists and later taken by the Kurdish peshmerga. The churches were burned or devastated and at least 90 Christians were taken hostage while a boy of just 17 years he was tortured and killed. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in the hands of the Islamists there would be men, women and children; Thousands of people fleeing violence. The dramatic story of Msgr. Jacques Behnan Hindo, Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Hassaké-Nisibi: “The terrorists have attacked before the village of Tel Tamar , then took Tel Shamiran and all the other smaller villages, up to Tel Hormuz, where they set fire to everything. both in Tel Hormuz in Tel Shamiran that took dozens of hostages, with the intention of using them to perhaps take repurchases or a prisoner exchange. “
The archbishop Hindo, however, denounced the indifference of the world against the attacks jihadists: “I want to say clearly that we have the feeling of being abandoned in the hands of those of Daesh (the Arabic name of the Isis, ed.) Yesterday American bombers flew over the area several times, but did not intervene. ” And another complaint the prelate he almost shouted to the microphones of Vatican Radio: “The Red Cross Red Crescent to send money, but the Red Crescent gives absolutely nothing to Christians! Those responsible for the Red Crescent, meeting the High Commissioner for Refugees, boasted in front of the television and talked as if they had helped who knows how many people. But in reality so far the Red Crescent has not given anything to the Christians: are four years old! “.
The situation of the Christians of that area is increasingly dramatic. Along the river Khabur stood thirty villages built by the Assyrian and Chaldean Christians fleeing persecution of the Iraqi army but with the advent of the Isis were depopulated. Tel Hormuz, which before the war had more than 4,000 inhabitants, was reduced to less than 300.
The nuncio in Damascus confirmed the ‘”invasion”: “A number of families – said talking with the issuer Tv2000 – have fled to Hassaké and another part went to Qamishly, a bit’ further east “. “Syria now – he added – is bathed in the blood, from north to south, from east to west. It is the blood of Christians but also believers of other religions. Here in Damascus, in the so-called Palestinian neighborhood of Yarmouk camp, there are for example, 18,500 Palestinians who for months no longer have even a drop of water. ” The fury of the fanatics Isis was also translated the churches destroyed to Tel Hurmiz, one of the oldest of Syria. The same fate, about three weeks ago, was touched to the church of the Holy Virgin in Mosul, the historical place of worship for the Orthodox, dating from the late nineteenth century.
The situation in Syria and Iraq, unfortunately, is not isolated. Often Pope Francis, busy these days in spiritual exercises at Ariccia, spoke of persecuted Christians, of the thousands of martyrs in the world, of ” ecumenism of blood “that unites Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants killed for the simple fact of being Christians. The Chamber had launched after the beheading of 21 Egyptian Copts, for which he offered Mass the next day.
Nigeria violence Islamist Boko Haram are daily. But in other countries the lives of Christians are particularly difficult, though often not leaked official news. In Somalia raging the Shebab, who last November attacked a commuter bus in Kenya and massacred 28 Muslim passengers. Even in Pakistan, Christians are subject to discrimination and abuse: the emblematic case of Asia Bibi, sentenced to death on charges pretext of insulting Muhammad. In India, Hindu fundamentalists to stir up hatred against Christians. Just two days ago was inaugurated the first monument in memory of seven martyrs killed in Orissa in August 2008, when the violence of the Hindus forced about 55,000 faithful to flee, while 5,600 houses were burned, nearly 300 churches destroyed, without contrare convents , schools and care institutions. The victims were at least 91. Not to mention the silent martyrdom of many Christians persecuted in countries where it is still in force a commun ist regime, North Korea and China on all.
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