Scottish Catholic Observer

Thousands of Christians are reported to be fleeing after Islamic militants seized the minority’s largest town in Iraq.

The Islamic State (still known by old name ISIS) group captured the town Qaraqosh and other largely Christian settlements nearby last night after the withdrawal of Kurdish forces

ISIS has seized large parts of Northern Iraq and Syria to create an Islamic caliphate. Kurdish forces, known as the Peshmerga, have been fighting the Sunni militants in the north for weeks.

“I now know that the towns of Qaraqosh, Tal Kayf, Bartella and Karamlesh have been emptied of their original population and are now under the control of the militants,” Chaldean Archbishop Joseph Thomas of Kirkuk and Sulaimaniyah, said, “It’s a catastrophe, a tragic situation. We call on the UN Security Council to immediately intervene. Tens of thousands of terrified people are being displaced as we speak, it cannot be described.”

Nearby Qaroqosh as many as 40,000 people from Iraq’s religious minority groups are stranded on Mount Sinjar (above) in a bid to make it to the autonomous Kurdistan region.

Most of the refugees, who fled their home city of Sinjar when itwas seized by Islamic State at the weekend, are members of the Yazidi community. The Yazidis are an offshoot from Zoroastrianism and the ‘Peacock Angel’ at the centre of their beliefs is associated by some Sunni Muslims with Satan.

This makes them especially vulnerable to the sectarian attacks practised by Islamic State, which refers to them as ‘devil-worshippers.’

The foreign minister of Iraqi Kurdistan has said the international community has a ‘moral responsibility’ to intervene.

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