1:21AM BST 19 Jul 2014
Iraqi Christians leave city en masse after Islamist militants threatened to kill them unless they converted to Islam or paid a ‘protection tax’
Christians were fleeing Iraq’s jihadist-held city of Mosul en masse on Friday after mosques relayed an ultimatum giving them a few hours to leave, the country’s Chaldean patriarch and witnesses said.
Iraq is home to one of the world’s most ancient Christian communities, but their numbers have plummeted as attacks against them mounted after the US-led invasion in 2003, which unleashed a wave of sectarian violence.
“Christian families are on their way to Dohuk and Arbil,” in the neighbouring autonomous region of Kurdistan, Patriarch Louis Sako told AFP. “For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians.”
Before 2003 the city’s Christians numbered some 60,000 people, but that dropped to some 35,000 by June this year, Sako said.
Another 10,000 fled Mosul after Sunni Islamist militants took control in a sweeping offensive led by Islamic State (IS) insurgents that began on June 9, and has since spread to other parts of northern and western Iraq.