Yazidis and Christians face existential threat in northeast Syria following Turkish intervention and US pull back of troops

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) heard last week that President Donald Trump’s partial withdrawal of American troops from northeast Syria in 2019 created a vacuum in which Turkey and Turkish-backed militia have been able to threaten local vulnerable civilian populations including Christians and Yazidis. Condemning Turkey’s latest airstrikes and ground operations in the region, the USCIRF called for the US government to “utilize all diplomatic and economic leverage to protect vulnerable religious minorities in northern Iraq — as well as neighboring northeastern Syria — from Turkey’s indiscriminate military operations,” the Christian Post reported.

Syrian Christians Hunted by Radical Jihadists

Many Christians – all of them former Muslims – feared a genocide as they saw radical Islamic groups on their way to the Syrian city of Afrin. CBN News Middle East Bureau Chief Chris Mitchell talked with one humanitarian aid worker who helped these Christians find a safe haven.

Syrian Christians Fear Persecution Under Turkish Rule

A city in Northern Syria, once a refuge for those fleeing the fighting all around them, is now the scene of suffering and death. Afrin is a Kurdish city, but it has welcomed Christian and Yazidi refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war and ISIS militants.

Through a War, God Brings Revival to Syria

For years, Syrian Christians had been praying for a revival. ‘But never did we imagine it would come because of war,’ said one church leader. Seven years of civil war has left Syria in ruins. Many of those who came from Christian families left early on in the war, a cause of great despair as church leaders watched their congregants slowly disappear.

Canada: Genocide declaration defeated by Parliament

The House of Commons in Canada recently voted against a motion declaring that the atrocities committed by the Islamic State against religious minorities in Syria and Iraq were actually acts of genocide.

Syria: Damage, destruction to churches

After the April liberation of an ancient Syrian town from the Islamic State’s control, many of its churches and Christian buildings were found to have been destroyed, or badly damaged.

Genocide waged on religious minorities in Syria, Iraq

The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee has unanimously passed HR 75, a resolution declaring that those who commit or support mass murder against religious minorities are guilty of “genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.”

House Resolution to call extermination ‘Genocide’

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a bipartisan resolution in September that called for the murder of Christians and other religious minority groups in Iraq and Syria to be officially classified as “genocide,” according to Barnabas Aid.

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