By Baghdadhope
The appeals to stop the violence that in recent days have severely affected the Christian community in Mosul multiply to highlight the seriousness of the moment.
To talk about what is happening is today, in a telephone interview with Baghdadhope, Msgr. Shleimun Warduni, the Chaldean Patriarch Vicar who, from Baghdad, gave expression to all his pain:
“We are anguished. We do not know who and why is massacring peaceful people who never hurt anyone, who has, always had, and tried to have, good relations with everybody.
I wrote to the President and to the Prime Minister asking the Government to intervene and stop these murders. As a man of church I have the duty to remind everyone that life is a gift from God and that only He can take it out. Those who kill, those who pour innocent blood, go against His will that impels us to sow love and not hatred and violence. As children of God we ask for His grace to open the hearts of the wicked men and guide them on the path of brotherly love. As men and citizens of this country that suffered and still suffer we ask for everybody’s voice to raise against these massacres that must be stopped. "
Yesterday, October 9, was the second anniversary of the abduction of Father Paul Iskandar, the 58 years old Syriac Orthodox priest abducted in the district of Hay al Karama in Mosul and whose corpse was found two days later, mutilated and beheaded. Exactly two years after that event the situation in the city has not improved.
To talk about what is happening is today, in a telephone interview with Baghdadhope, Msgr. Shleimun Warduni, the Chaldean Patriarch Vicar who, from Baghdad, gave expression to all his pain:
“We are anguished. We do not know who and why is massacring peaceful people who never hurt anyone, who has, always had, and tried to have, good relations with everybody.
I wrote to the President and to the Prime Minister asking the Government to intervene and stop these murders. As a man of church I have the duty to remind everyone that life is a gift from God and that only He can take it out. Those who kill, those who pour innocent blood, go against His will that impels us to sow love and not hatred and violence. As children of God we ask for His grace to open the hearts of the wicked men and guide them on the path of brotherly love. As men and citizens of this country that suffered and still suffer we ask for everybody’s voice to raise against these massacres that must be stopped. "
Yesterday, October 9, was the second anniversary of the abduction of Father Paul Iskandar, the 58 years old Syriac Orthodox priest abducted in the district of Hay al Karama in Mosul and whose corpse was found two days later, mutilated and beheaded. Exactly two years after that event the situation in the city has not improved.
Amjad Boutros Hadi and his son Hussam, Ivan Enwiya, Hozam Toma Yusef, Jalal Musa, Khaled Al-Sanmak Girgis, Ziad Kamal, Bashar Nafea Tayr El Hazeen are the names of some of the Christians killed in Mosul, but the list of the violence carried out in recent weeks is certainly longer, and includes those that nobody talks about: threats, not reported beatings, seclusion in the houses to which the few remaining families condemned themselves. No one seems able or to want to stop the flight of Christians from Mosul. A flight not without problems. As reported by the website Ankawa.com many families fled to other towns but for example in Bakhdida there is no place for them and they had to move to Tellesqof or Karamles in a sort of a never-ending pilgrimage of sorrow. After days of silence the calls of the Christian community of Mosul were echoed by some media that reported the broken-hearted voice of Msgr. Philip Najim, who asked precisely the breaking of the wall of silence surrounding what in the words of Father Amer Youkhanna is nothing but "a massacre" and that of Msgr. Louis Sako from Kirkuk who appealed to the "noble people of Mosul" not to permit the perpetration of acts violating the rights of the citizens. To talk about what is happening in Mosul was also yesterday Brigadier General Khalid Abdul Alsattar, spokesman of the police forces, who revealed the existence of a plan of action to put an end to these killings that in just three days made nine victims, the governor of Nineveh province, Duraid Kashmula and the governmental office for the Affairs of Sunni Muslims in Mosul that harshly condemned the killings that seem unlikely to stop if it is confirmed, as some sources reported to Ankawa.com, that some flyers were found in the streets of Mosul intimating to the Christian population to leave the city within 24 hours.