After failed negotiations, the Islamic State (IS) has refused to release 242 Christian hostages captured during a late February raid along the Khabur River in Syria.
On May 1, IS demanded 242 million U.S. dollars for the release of the 93 women, 51 children, and 98 men taken captive. The Assyrian church, family, and friends, unable to raise such a large sum, made a lesser, undisclosed offer, which the Islamic State rejected, saying it would no longer negotiate concerning the fate of the captive Christians.
Based on Islamic law, their fate will now likely be slavery (women and children especially) or execution (men especially).
According to Bishop Mar Mellis:
We tried many times to negotiate with the people that captured them and for their release.
We offered them an amount of money in accordance with the law of jizya but sadly after a week the negotiator between us returned and told us that ISIS wanted $100,000 for each person. They were asking for over $23 million.
We are a poor nation. These people [Christian captives] have not done anything wrong and won’t harm anyone. We as Assyrians do not have this amount of money you are asking for. We offered an amount of money that we cannot disclose at this time. With the amount we offered, we thought it was acceptable, to have the return of the 230 people.
After two days, they [Islamic State] told us: “The amount the church offered was not acceptable. From now on, we will no longer negotiate with you.” We then thought we would wait, hoping they would come back to talk. Sadly, we received word that the 230 kidnapped people will be sent to the Court of Sharia in Raqqa, where a Muslim judge from Mosul will deliver their fate.
In the context of these ongoing attacks that the ancient Assyrian Christian community has been exposed to, particularly at the hands of IS, Archimandrite Emanuel Youkhana of the Assyrian Church of the East declared before a European parliament on human rights that “Assyrian Christians are facing a danger that threatens their existence in their historical regions.”
I’ve only felt like this once before in my life, and it was during the darkest days of the Vietnam war when thousands of people were being killed on a daily basis, and there was nothing that I, nor anyone else, could do to stop it. No one wanted to talk about it, much less respond to it. So days went on, one after another, and nothing ever changed. Weeks, months, and years went by, but the killing continued.
I wonder if the fact that so many people had to endure such a horrific and relentless reality for so long back then, always without hope and never with any end in sight, has something to do with why no one seems to be even dimly able to recognize or respond in any meaningful way to the fate of the Assyrian Christians today. Does the moral consciousness of humanity just shut down after a while? If the lies are too big and the atrocities are too awful, is it just too much for people to comprehend and deal with effectively?
As always, keep up the great work, Raymond. Sometimes I wonder if you weren’t covering the story whether anyone would even know about it at al.
Only time will tell if these jihadists will kill as many people as the Nazis did, but, if they don’t, it won’t be for lack of trying or lack of desire, that’s for sure. And, regardless of the numbers of victims involved, what is quite obvious is that they represent an evil that must be confronted and stamped out, or else humanity will descend into a Dark Ages which will make the Middle Ages look like the Renaissance. There is no practical, substantive difference between the Nazis of pre-WWII and WWII Germany and the Muslim jihadists of today. Both groups follow an ideology which teaches them that they are superior to other people and which gives them license to kill, abuse and torture people who look or believe differently than they do. Nazism and Islam are both supremacist, racist, violent ideologies of hate.
The total lack of urgency, seriousness of purpose and resolve by western leaders in terms of confronting these fascist thugs and sadist-bullies is appalling, a moral outrage that borders on criminal levels of indifference and immorality.
Those who allow evil to flourish unopposed are essentially complicit in enabling it.
Funny how the west takes our (actually God-given, Christian) Laws for granted… this foundation is breaking world wide, and making way for a new strong political system and a new set of laws in the world. Sharia law. .. not to scare people but think about that. What we put our faith in, Gods law, but have taken completely for granted. .. many people are going to catch a sobering wake up to that fact. I hope people realize it & the world starts to work to protect it before its too late.. I hope, those foundations are’nt already too corrupted to stand strong anymore frown emoticon