Source: World Watch Monitor, May 8, 2015
As hard-fought land battles continued during March and April, dozens of the displaced Assyrian families began fleeing Hassaka to resettle abroad. “The situation in Hassaka is bad and very fragile,” Archimandrite Emanuel Youkhana of the Assyrian Church of the East told World Watch Monitor. The clashes have now come close to the suburbs of Hassaka city, where the archbishops of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Syriac Catholic Church are headquartered. Only 800 Christian families remain in the province, he said.
“Assyrian Christians are facing a danger that threatens their existence in their historical regions,” Youkhana told the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights in Brussels on April 23.
The future of Hassaka’s Christians became increasingly precarious after Syria’s revolution took an overt Islamist turn in 2013, once the Assad regime had pulled most of its army forces out of northeastern Syria.
An Assyrian doctor working in a government hospital in Qamishli told World Watch Monitor in late March that it was impossible to trust any of the sides fighting for control of Hassaka province.
In Beirut, Bishop Yatron Koliana of the Assyrian Church of the East sadly agreed. “We are fasting and praying that the governments of the world will not give weapons or facilitate things for the Islamic State and their allies,” he told World Watch Monitor. ”Sometimes we feel that Christians here are being sold for oil and gas. So we plead for prayers, that the big decision-makers will have mercy in their hearts to save us.”
» Editor’s Note: Long-time Missions Catalyst readers know I like to look at holidays as bridges for sharing the gospel, and lately I’ve taken more of an interest in the traditions of our Orthodox brothers and sisters. Tomorrow (May 21) many celebrate Ascension Day. Not a big deal to most Christians, but it does mark the day Jesus gave us the Great Commission! See Ascension Day and the Great Commission (Orthodox-Reformed Bridge).