The Islamic State has issued an ultimatum to the Christians in the town of Mosul in northern Iraq, urging them to convert to Islam, pay a religious tax or face death.
The statement by the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi, warned that the Christians had until Saturday to
“leave the borders of the Islamic Caliphate.”
“After this date, there is nothing between us and them but
the sword,” the statement said.
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, which is the previous
former name for the Islamic State, captured Mosul as part of a
large-scale offensive in July, which resulted in the declaration
of a “caliphate” in parts of Iraq and Syria earlier this
month.
Messages warning Christians about the ultimatum were announced
through loudspeakers on the city’s mosques.
Church leaders advised the few families who wanted to negotiate
with militants that they should also flee for their own safety.
The exodus went on in Mosul throughout Friday, with all the
Christians abandoning the town by the end of the day.
“Christian families are on their way to Dohuk and Arbil, [in the
neighboring autonomous region of Kurdistan],” Patriarch
Louis Sako told AFP. “For the first time in the history of
Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians.”
The head of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq said that, in
recent days, the Islamic State militants had been tagging
Christian houses with the letter N. which stands for
“Nassarah” – the way Christian are referred to in the
Koran.
“We were shocked by the distribution of a statement by the
Islamic State calling on Christians to convert to Islam, or to
pay unspecified tribute, or to leave their city and their homes
taking only their clothes and no luggage, and that their homes
would then belong to the Islamic State,” Sako said.
"We have lived in this city and we have had a civilisation for thousands of years - and suddenly some strangers came and expelled us from our homes," a woman in her 60s told Reuters. On Friday, she had to flee for Hamdaniya, a mainly Christian town controlled by Kurdish security forces to the southeast of Mosul.
The events in Mosul, which is home to the tomb of the Biblical
and Koranic prophet Jonah, echo the decree, which ISIS issued in
the Syrian city of Raqqa in February, ordering the local
Christians pay tax in gold and curb displays of their faith in
return for protection.
Mosul lies across the Tigris river from the ancient city of
Nineveh, at the heart of Mesopotamia. It used to have a Christian
population of around 100,000 a decade ago, but the numbers
decreased drastically due to waves of attacks on Christians
following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
Locals estimate the town’s Christian population at around 5,000
ahead of the Islamic State takeover. But they said that all,
except around 200 people, have left Mosul during the last months
as it was controlled by the Islamists.