Tag Archives: Persecution

Christians caught up in Philippines’ urban battle with Islamists

A view of a fire caused by continued fighting between the government soldiers and the Maute group, in Marawi City in southern Philippines May 28, 2017.

By Tom Allard

ILIGAN CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – Bishop Edwin Dela Pena was sipping coffee after dinner in a southern Philippines coastal town last Tuesday when he received a phone call: it was from one of his diocese priests, who sounded panicky and distressed.

Father Teresito “Chito” Sugarno, the vicar general of Marawi City, had been taken hostage by Islamist militants along with about a dozen of his parishioners.

“He was only given a few lines to deliver, and it was simply echoing the demands of the kidnappers – for the troops to withdraw,” said Dela Pena. If the demand was not met, he was told, “something bad would happen”.

There has been no further word from the group of Christians since they were caught up in a ferocious battle that has raged between Islamist insurgents and Philippines soldiers in Marawi for the past week.

As many as 180,000 people, about 90 percent of the population, have fled the usually bustling lakeside town nestled in lush tropical hills that, almost overnight last week, became a theater of urban warfare.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law across Mindanao – the country’s southernmost island and an area the size of South Korea – as troops outside Marawi closed in on  Isnilon Hapilon, who was proclaimed “emir” of Southeast Asia last year after he pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Mindanao has long been a hotbed of local insurgencies and separatist movements: but now, Islamist fighters from Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries have converged in Mindanao, stoking fears that it could become a regional stronghold of Islamic State.

More than 90 percent of the Philippines’ 100 million people are Christian, but here Muslims are in the majority. In 1980 Marawi proclaimed itself an “Islamic City” and it is the only city in the country with that designation.

For the small Christian community of Marawi, however, life in the city had until recently been peaceful and prosperous.

“We don’t consider ourselves Muslims or Christians, we are just friends,” said Dela Pena, who has lived for 17 years in Marawi but was out of town when the violence broke out.

That peace was shattered some months ago, he said, after the army bombed an encampment of Islamist groups some 50 km (30 miles) away.

“They said they pulverized the whole camp, but these people simply transferred their base of operation from the jungle to the urban center, to the city, Marawi,” he told Reuters in an interview from Iligan City, 37 km (23 miles) from Marawi.

“They came in trickles, a few people at a time. They have relatives there. They lived, they recruited,” he said, adding that authorities appear to have missed the looming threat.

Members of Philippine Marines walk next to an armoured fighting vehicle (AFV) as they advance their position in Marawi City, Philippines May 28

Members of Philippine Marines walk next to an armoured fighting vehicle (AFV) as they advance their position in Marawi City, Philippines May 28, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

CATHEDRAL ATTACKED AND TORCHED

Chaos was unleashed upon Marawi when troops searching for Hapilon were ambushed by heavily armed militants.

More than 200 local and foreign fighters from the Maute group and others allied to Islamic State fanned out across the city, seizing the main hospital and prison before attacking the Cathedral of Maria Auxiliadora.

Inside, nearby residents told Dela Pena, Father Teresito and a group of worshippers were decorating the church for a holy day to celebrate the life of Mary, a sacred figure in both Christianity and Islam.

Dela Pena said they ran to the nearby bishop’s house, hoping they would be safe there, but the militants burst in after them. That evening, after bundling their captives into vehicles, they torched the church, according to the residents.

Photos showing the priest, a young man and a woman slumped against a wall have circulated on the internet. Dela Pena believes they are being used as human shields by the militants.

“I cannot imagine. I have no words to describe it,” he said.

Still, he remains hopeful that the city can unite again. The vast majority of Marawi’s citizens, whatever their faith, are appalled by the violence and disruption, he said.

“I think we can begin something more effective in terms of working together, in terms of dialogue, in terms of peaceful coexistence,” he said. “After all, we have shared the same predicament.”

(Additional reporting by Karen Lema in MANILA; Editing by John Chalmers and Lincoln Feast)

Gunmen kill 26 in attack on Christians in Egypt

The Coptic Orthodox Virgin Mary church is seen during sunset ahead of Coptic Orthodox Easter in Cairo April 18, 2009. REUTERS/Tarek Mostafa

CAIRO (Reuters) – Gunmen attacked buses and a truck taking a group of Coptic Christians to a monastery in southern Egypt on Friday, killing 26 people and wounding 25 others, witnesses and the Health Ministry said.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said the unidentified gunmen had arrived in three four-wheel-drive vehicles.

Eyewitnesses said masked men stopped the two buses and a truck and opened fire on a road leading to the monastery of Saint Samuel the Confessor in Minya province, which is home to a sizeable Christian minority.

Security forces launched a hunt for the attackers, setting up dozens of checkpoints and patrols on the desert road.

The grand imam of al-Azhar, Egypt’s 1,000-year-old center of Islamic learning, said the attack was intended to destabilize the country.

“I call on Egyptians to unite in the face of this brutal terrorism,” Ahmed al-Tayeb said from Germany, where he was on a visit.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called a meeting of security officials, the state news agency said. The Health Ministry put the toll at 26 dead and 25 wounded.

Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s population of 92 million, have been the subject of a series of deadly attacks in recent months.

About 70 have been killed since December in bomb attacks on churches in the cities of Cairo, Alexandria and Tanta.

Those attacks were claimed by Islamic State. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Friday’s attack.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein, Omar Fahmy and Mohamed Abdellah; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Louise Ireland and Gareth Jones)

Artist works to preserve Christian heritage in Hamas-run Gaza

Christian artist Naser in Gaza

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Only about 1,200 Christians remain in Gaza — only a tiny fraction of the population in a territory run by Hamas Islamists — but artist Naser Jeldha is doing what he can to preserve its Christian heritage through art.

In his studio in the heart of old Gaza, not far from a 5th century Orthodox church, Jeldha spends his days carving religious figurines, chiseling low-relief carvings of Biblical scenes and painting portraits of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and the saints.

“My message is about my religion,” said the gray-bearded 57-year-old, a member of the Greek Orthodox community.

“I want to make it visual, I want to make people see it, not only to be kept as texts in church.”

As he works, steel-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose, Jeldha listens to Byzantine prayer music that echoes softly around the studio, creating an atmosphere from another era.

The walls are covered in his pictures, with more laid out on the arms of chairs and sofas, and others propped on a 150-year-old Russian piano in the corner. As well as painting and sculpture, Jeldha plays the accordion, piano and guitar.

In the run up to Christmas – celebrated on Jan. 7 in the Orthodox church – Jeldha is busy making pieces as gifts for friends and relatives.

While he has been an artist for 35 years, he does not display his works or offer them for sale. Instead, he presents them as gifts at weddings or events on the Christian calendar. He does, however, have plans for a public showing soon.

In the next two weeks, he is also hoping he will be one of about 800 Christians granted a permit by Israel to leave Gaza and travel to Bethlehem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to attend prayer services in Jesus’s birthplace.

“We have applied for permits and if we get them I intend to travel with my family,” said Jeldha, who is determined to remain in Gaza despite the departure of many Christians over the last decade in the face of rising economic hardship.

While Gaza’s Christians generally enjoy good relations with their Muslim neighbors, there have been isolated attacks by hardline Salafist groups on Christian tombs and symbols.

Hamas, the Islamist movement that has ruled Gaza since 2006, is keen to ensure the Christian community feels safe and protected. Its leaders occasionally visit the heads of the three Gaza churches to build stronger relations.

Jeldha acknowledged that the economy was suffering, with the blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt, a move to pressure Hamas, limiting trade, driving up costs and causing despair.

Despite that, Jeldha, whose white front door is adorned with a small cross painted in blue, said he would never leave.

“I have lived in this neighborhood for 54 years. I have brotherly and wonderful relations with Muslims,” said the father of four. “Gaza is beautiful and I will not leave it…I do not feel I am a stranger here.”

(Writing by Nidal Almughrabi, Editing by Luke Baker and Angus MacSwan)

Fire destroys shelters for internally displaced Muslims in Myanmar

Boys stand among debris after fire destroyed shelters at a camp for internally displaced Rohingya Muslims in the western Rakhine State near Sittwe

YANGON (Reuters) – A fire broke out on Tuesday in a camp for internally displaced Muslims in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, destroying shelters where about 2,000 people had lived and injuring about 14 of them, the United Nations said.

Camps in the area largely house members of the marginalized Rohingya Muslim minority, who were displaced by fighting between Buddhists and Muslims in 2012.

The fire at the Baw Du Pha 2 camp near the state capital of Sittwe started in the morning. Authorities were investigating the cause but initial reports indicated it was an accident from a cooking fire, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement.

“Based on the current information available, at least 14 people were injured by the fire. There are unconfirmed reports of fatalities but this has not been verified,” it said.

The fire destroyed about 44 “long houses” and damaged up to nine, affecting 440 households, or about 2,00 people, it said.

Authorities in the area were not immediately available for comment.

Myanmar’s Rohingya population is stateless and thousands of them have fled persecution and poverty, often by boat to other parts of Southeast Asia.

Some 125,000 Rohingya remain displaced and face severe travel restrictions while living in camps.

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Yazidi teenager escaped Islamic State, appeals for help for sex slaves

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – It was a “black morning” two years ago when Islamic State militants seized the Yazidi town of Sinjar in northwest Iraq, abducting thousands of civilians including a 15-year-old girl and 27 members of her family.

The teenager, Nihad Barakat Shamo Alawsi, was taken to Syria and then to the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul in northern Iraq, she told an event in London on Wednesday.

“They raped us, they killed our men, they took our babies away from us,” Alawsi, now 17, said at the event organized by the UK-based AMAR Foundation, a charity that provides education and healthcare in the Middle East.

“The worst thing was the torture in Mosul. We were beaten and raped continuously for two weeks,” she said, speaking through an interpreter. “Girls were taken from their families and raped constantly and then they were handed out to “emirs.””

The Sunni militants captured around 5,000 Yazidi men and women in summer 2014. Some 2,000 have managed to escape or have been smuggled out of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria, activists say.

Islamic State considers the Yazidis to be devil-worshippers. The ancient Yazidi faith blends elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Islam.

The United Nations says Islamic State still holds an estimated 3,500 people captive in Iraq, the majority of them women and girls from the Yazidi community.

Alawsi said a man who took her as a slave died a few weeks later, and she was sold to another man who already had a wife and another Yazidi sex-slave. He beat and raped her and a month later she became pregnant.

“I thought the child I was carrying was a member of Daesh and would become a Daesh criminal when he grew up,” Alawsi said quietly, using a pejorative Arabic name for Islamic State.

Alawsi gave birth to a baby boy, but three months later she managed to escape after the baby’s father decided to marry her to his cousin.

“I managed to make a phone call to my family with someone’s help, and I managed to escape, but I had to leave the baby behind,” she said.

Most of the Yazidi population, numbering around half a million, are displaced in camps in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan.

Alawsi now lives in one of the camps with her mother, father and siblings, and works with AMAR, volunteering to come to London to speak of her people’s plight. Two of her brothers and two sisters are still held by Islamic State.

“It’s not a life, we are not living a life until the rest of our people are released by Daesh,” Alawsi said.

“I beg you to help my people, to save them from Daesh, and to free especially the sex slaves, the young girls and children that have been taken.”

(Reporting by Magdalena Mis, editing by Tim Pearce)