“You have three options: convert to Islam and get your properties back, leave the Islamic State for good and your properties will be owned by Islamic State, or be killed.” This was the stark threat given to Rashel*, an Iraqi Christian in her 50s, by Islamic State (IS) extremist fighters when they entered her hometown in the Plains of Nineveh in 2014. To deny Christ was unthinkable. Amidst gunshots and falling mortars, the family fled, describing their eventual safe arrival in Kurdistan as a “miracle from Jesus”.
Islamic extremists force Christian boy to yield at gunpoint
Rashel and her children were already familiar with suffering for Christ. Daily life for Christians in Iraq was dangerous even before IS arrived. In 2010, her son Mikael* had come top of his class, but Islamic extremists ordered him, at gunpoint, to yield the first position to a Muslim student. The following year, his sister Rahma* was forced by radical Islamists to wear an Islamic head-covering. Although in her final year of law studies, she was so fearful of what the extremists would do to her next that she gave up attending classes.
Barnabas is stepping in to help
Barnabas Fund’s Operation Safe Havens is helping Middle Eastern Christians like Rashel and her family to escape the daily dangers they experienced in their homelands. Barnabas does this by helping with their flight costs to Australia, where they have been granted visas to settle. Australia pledged to accept 18 750 refugees in the year up to June 2019, and to accept a similar number again in the next twelve months. In the first six months of this year, we helped over 100 people from 25 families to reach safety.
Family begins new life in the peaceful place they yearned for
Rana* yearned to escape the continuous threats that she and her husband, Fadi*, and their two daughters received in Syria and find “a peaceful place where there is no fear and no danger”. Rockets from the Islamist rebels continually bombarded the village where the family lived. One midnight, a rocket landed on Fadi’s curtain shop, destroying it.
Husband left with physical and mental scars
They moved to some agricultural land near another village, which Fadi owned, planning to earn a living there instead. The village community was sympathetic to Islamic extremist groups fighting nearby, and began sending verbal messages threatening to kill Fadi, that Rana remembers well. The terrorists knew that the land had a water well. They hit and insulted Fadi before kidnapping him. “After continuous beatings, my husband had to give up his land . . . When my husband returned, he was badly hurt, both physically and psychologically.” Operation Safe Havens has helped the Christian family begin this new life in peace and safety because we paid their airfares to Australia.
Targeted for their faith
Leah*, a Christian dentistry student, lived in Suqaylabiyah, a Syrian town especially targeted by terrorist armed groups from early 2012. The terrorism is because, she said, the town’s majority Christian inhabitants “were considered infidels and they should be killed”. Leah had already been kidnapped by rebels in November 2011 and was held for twelve days, only escaping when her captors fled from the advancing Syrian army. Leah remembers 24 April 2016 as a particularly terrible day. She was at church with her family when rebel rockets began to fall heavily. The congregation crouched between the chairs, trying to find cover.
Rockets “fell like rain” on Christian city
Later that year, on 7 August, there was another heavy bombardment. “Rockets were falling as rain,” said Leah and this time their home was hit. The hospital was overflowing with the injured. Leah’s mother collapsed with a nervous breakdown and had to be hospitalised too. Her father was at a loss, not knowing what to do. Leah, who had kept strong for so long, started to cry. “It was the worst day of my life,” she said. Now she has found the safety she prayed for in Australia, thanks to money generously donated by Barnabas Fund supporters. She said, “It is our dream country. Where we can live a decent life, without sectarianism, in a safe and secure country.”
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Date published: 22/08/2019
Written by: Barnabas Fund
Feature image: Syrian family arrives in the safe haven of Australia
Article source: JOY! Magazine
