Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako,
who presides the Iraqi Episcopal conference, on Thursday called
for an armed response from the United States, the European
Union, and the Arab League to repel Islamic jihadist forces that
are sweeping across northern Iraq, where they are driving
hundreds of thousands of Christians and Yazidi from their cities
and carrying out what the patriarch called "a slow genocide" of
members of minority faiths.
The Chaldean Catholic Church is made up of an estimated
500,000 people who are ethnic Assyrians indigenous to northern
Iraq, southeast Turkey, northeast Syria and northwest Iran.
The US, the EU and the Arab League have a duty to "clear
the Nineveh plain of all jihadist militia" and help Christians,
Yazidi and Shiites "return to their villages of origin and
rebuild their lives," the religious leader wrote in an appeal
sent to AsiaNews agency.
The appeal was written "with the unanimous consent" of the
bishops of Mosul as well as various churches and Christian
denominations, according to AsiaNews.
As the patriarch made his appeal, Foreign Minister Laurent
Fabius announced France is about to supply Iraqi Kurds fighting
the jihadists with weapons "in the next few hours".
"They are sophisticated weapons fulfilling urgent Kurdish
needs, and they will be delivered in the next few hours," the
minister tweeted.
As well, Germany will begin military aid beginning on
Friday, German news agency DPA reported.
It will also send four Transall military cargo planes with
food and medical equipment to aid refugees in the northern city
of Erbil, DPA said.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
