The ISIS terrorist group captured the largest Christian city in Iraq on Thursday.
Thousands of panicked Christians fled the city of Qaraqosh as the terrorists moved in overnight.
The Christian refugees who fled Qaraqosh last night.
ISIS began an assault on the historically Assyrian Christian city of Qaraqosh in the northern Nineveh province earlier this week.
Thousands of Christians from Mosul were in Qaraqosh after Mosul fell to ISIS last month.
VICE News reported:
Several Christians stayed behind to protect the ancient churches.
AINA reported:
Jihadists took over Iraq’s largest Christian town Qaraqosh and surrounding areas Thursday and sent tens of thousands of panicked residents fleeing towards autonomous Kurdistan, officials and witnesses said.
Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) militants moved in overnight after the withdrawal of Kurdish peshmerga troops, who are stretched thin across several fronts in Iraq, residents said.
“I now know that the towns of Qaraqosh, Tal Kayf, Bartella and Karamlesh have been emptied of their original population and are now under the control of the militants,” Joseph Thomas, the Chaldean archbishop of Kirkuk and Sulaimaniyah, told AFP.
Qaraqosh is an entirely Christian town that lies between Mosul, the jihadists’ main hub in Iraq, and Irbil, the Kurdish region’s capital. It usually has a population of around 50,000.
France called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting on Iraq after ISIS captured the largest Christian town this week.