Church leaders decided to hold a prayer vigil in front of the White House at 11 AM on Saturday, August 9 in response to the religious persecution that has been occurring in Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
"We are gathering at the White House on Saturday, to first pray and cry out to God for the protection of the persecuted church and other religious minorities in Iraq," said Reverend Patrick Mahoney from the Christian Defense Coalition. "Throughout history, prayer has sustained the needy in times of violence and persecution."
"It is unspeakable what is happening with Christians, Yazidis, and religious minorities in Iraq. This genocide has taken the lives of thousands of people with many facing starvation, beheading, torture, murder, and sexual assault while the world watches on in silence," he added.
ISIS militants have been continuing its pursuit of more and more land, now pushing towards the Kurdish capital on Thursday, according to Reuters. And in every new place that they conquer, Christians and other religious minorities are compelled to flee for their lives.
According to a CNN interview with Mark Arabo, a Chaldean American Catholic leader, "children are being beheaded, mothers are being raped and killed, and fathers are being hung."
In cities that the Islamic state had previously taken over, such as Mosul, Christians were forced to pay an exorbitant tax, convert to Islam, flee the city, or die. However, Arabo mentioned that even if Christians pay the tax, the ISIS militants have still been taking wives and daughters for their own wives regardless, making the "tax" option void. Fearing similar threats, many Christians and religious minorities have been escaping from every place that ISIS had been visiting. Most recently, the militants captured Qaraqosh, which is the area with the largest Christian population in Iraq.
Many other religious minorities, most notably the Yazidis, have also been fiercely persecuted, and recently fled to the Sinjar mountaintops to escape from militants' pursuit. UNICEF stated that there are thousands of people stranded in these mountains, including almost 25,000 children, 40 of which already died.
The U.S., in response, began providing humanitarian airdrops of clothes, food, and medicine on Thursday, and launched an airstrike on Friday against the Islamic State militants in Iraq.
This article has been updated on 10:24 AM, August 8th, to include updates on U.S. actions in Iraq, and details about how Iraqi Christians have been persecuted.
