Iraqi Christians who fled the northern city of Mosul after Islamic extremists seized it described Tuesday leaving behind all the possessions, as politicians in the country still struggle to form a government following recent elections.
Most of Mosul’s remaining Christians fled when the Islamic State group and an array of other Sunni militants captured the city on June 10 – the opening move in the insurgents’ blitz across northern and western Iraq. As a religious minority, Christians were wary of how they would be treated by hard-line Islamic militants.
The militants imposed a deadline Saturday for Christians to convert to Islam, pay a tax or face death. That was the final straw for many, including Zaid Qreqosh Ishaq, 27, who was forced to flee with his family.
“We had to go through an area where they had set up a checkpoint,” he said. Islamic State group militants “asked us to get out of the car. We got out. They took ... our things, our bags, our money, everything we had on us.”
With nothing more than the clothes on their backs, Ishaq’s family fled to the nearby self-rule Kurdish region or other areas protected by Kurdish security forces.
