Islamic terrorist group ISIS swooped in on Eritrean refugees in Libya, kidnapping anyone who said they were not a Muslim.
The Commission on Eritrean Refugees reported the attack Sunday.
“IS militants asked everyone who is Muslim or not and everybody started saying they are Muslims,” Meron Estefanos, the co-founder of the International Commission on Eritrean Refugees, told the International Business Times.
The terrorists then began quizzing those who claimed to be Muslims on the Koran and took those who could not answer the questions.
The kidnappings came just two days after two Eritrean refugees were shot dead during a similar attack by ISIS.
Eritrean refugees are fleeing their country’s political oppression. They risk passing through ISIS controlled areas of Libya to obtain a boat ride to Italy and freedom.
The refugees are tracing similar paths to Ethiopian refugees, just like the 28 Ethiopian Christians who were slaughtered by ISIS in April in their quest for freedom.
CER said that many Eritrean refugees are now trying to avoid Libya because of the terrorists.
Yazidi refugees are beginning to speak out about the horrific treatment they experienced at the hands of terrorist group ISIS.
“My older brother, my father, my mother, my wife and even my two kids were killed. All I have left of them is just one picture on my mobile phone,” a man identified as Tahysn to the London Daily Mail. He said that his sons were three and four when ISIS slit their throats.
Other refugees described watching other die from thirst and heat as they were trapped on a mountain awaiting help from western military groups.
“When we left Sinjar, the kids suffered a lot… Many men from our village died, many women have been captured. I saw some kids dying because of the heat,” a woman named Rezal said. “[ISIS]… even cut the throats of the babies.”
The refugees said that many of their kidnapped relatives have been trying to starve themselves to death because of the extreme brutality of their captors.
Observers estimate at least 60,000 Kurds have fled from Syria toward Turkey over a single 24-hour period because of ISIS.
“ISIS came and attacked, and we left with the women, but the rest of the men stayed behind,” 24-year-old Abdullah of Shiran told Reuters. “They killed many people in the villages, cutting their throats. We were terrified that they would cut our throats too.”
Witnesses say that women, children and the elderly were seen fleeing in large groups on foot.
“Islamic State is killing any civilian it finds in a village,” Mustefa Ebdi, the director of local radio station Arta FM, added. “People prefer to flee rather than remain and die. [ISIS wants] to eliminate anything that is Kurdish. This is creating a state of terror.”
Turkish officials reportedly stopped the group at the border and refused to allow them to cross until they confirmed they were fleeing ISIS.
U.N. officials called on world charities to send food and supplies to the region to help the refugees.
Christians forced to flee Mosul, Iraq because of the extreme Islamic terrorist group Islamic State are recounting their tales of horror as they fled for their lives.
“We heard the gunshots outside our door, and knew the terrorists were killing Christians,” Munira Aziz told Fox News. “But we hoped someone might rescue us. We cowered inside for two days, then knew we had to leave. We gathered some clothes and left at night.”
Aziz is now living inside a church in the northern Iraqi city of Sulemaniyah suffering from a broken hip. All she has left is the clothes on her back.
Aziz said that thousands of Christians were killed simply because they had no way to flee the city.
“There were Christians everywhere we went. In every garden, and in every doorway, there are just so many with nothing and with nowhere to go,” Aziz told Fox News. “But I am so happy now we are safe, we are the lucky ones.”
The exiled believers have stood firm in their faith.
“People say it would be easy to become a Muslim, but my religion is everything I now have — why would I give that up?” a refugee said. “I would die first.”
The Christians in exile are hoping that the recent advances by Kurdish fighters with the help of U.S. airstrikes will allow them to return their homes and churches.
Pope Francis went to give alms Sunday at a Rome parish next to the city’s main railway station on the church’s World Day of Migrants and Refugees where he spoke out on the plight of the world’s refugees.
“Let us think of the many migrants, the many refugees and their suffering,” Francis said to those in attendance. “Their lives are often without jobs and without documents and with a lot of pain.”
The Pope is the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina. The parish where he spoke on Sunday provides the needs of immigrants and homeless in Rome.
The Pope also spoke bold words against human traffickers that prey on those attempting to reach a better life in a new country. He called them “merchants of human meat who want to enslave migrants” and asked for governments to focus on not only helping immigrants but jailing traffickers.
The FBI is reporting that several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers have been allowed to enter the United States under the guise of being war refugees.
The FBI discovered two al-Qaeda terrorists living in Bowling Green, Kentucky in 2009 and the men admitting being part of a group that made improvised explosive devices (IEDs) targeting American troops.
The discovery of the terrorists led the FBI to back through every piece of evidence collected in Iraq connected to IEDs. The specialists looked at over 100,000 IEDs collected in war zones to find fingerprints that could be used to check against databases of refugees.
An ABC news investigation had discovered the two terrorists had slipped through the U.S. refugee screening system even though they had been detained during the war by Iraqi authorities for terrorist related activities.
State and federal officials rushed to say that despite the FBI’s “dozen of counter-terrorism investigations like [Bowling Green]” that most of the refugees from Iraq are peaceful, law abiding residents.
The BBC is reporting that thousands of civilians trapped in the Damascus suburb of Musahamiya fled after rebel forces and government troops agreed to a temporary cease fire to let them leave.
However, reports say that the government went through the group of refugees and detained at least 500 men for questioning. This contradicts a statement from the Syrian Red Crescent that all men arrived at a government center for displaced citizens.
Sources in Muadhamiya told the BBC that many civilians are still hiding in the suburb out of fears of government troops.
The Syrian minister for social affairs says that anyone left behind in Muadhamiya is going to be considered a rebel fighter or terrorist.
The situation in the city had become so severe that Islamic leaders said it would be acceptable for citizens to eat cats, dogs and donkeys to survive when those animals are normally considered “unclean” for Muslims.
The number of refugees fleeing Africa and Syria have grown to the point that Sicily has been forced to declare a state of emergency.
Italian officials say 370 migrants were rescued from boats between Libya and Sicily on Tuesday. All the migrants were being taken to the island of Lampedusa.
The state of emergency means that Italy’s civil protection service will be able to more efficiently carry out their work in dealing with people entering the country illegally according to the BBC.
Over 400 migrants have died from capsized boats in the last two weeks. Officials say the victims were fleeing war and poverty in Africa believing in a better life in Europe.
EU officials are being called upon to step in and provide funding help with the refugee crisis.
Divers entering the wreckage of a sunken boat that carried refugees from Africa to Italy reporting finding 38 bodies in the hull that were “so entwined one with the other” that they’ve had difficulty bringing the remains to the surface.
The discovery of the bodies has raised the death toll from the accident to 232 people.
The boat caught fire and sank near the Sicilian island of Lampedusa carried more than 500 refugees from Somalia and Eritrea.
“Some [bodies] we have found with their arms outstretched. We try not to notice this kind of thing too much, otherwise the task is too difficult,” police diver Riccardo Nobile told the BBC. “We can see a woman’s hair floating out of a broken porthole. But we haven’t been able to get to her.”
The United Nations says that 3,000 people try to flee Eritrea every month.
The United Nations’ refugee agency has reported the total number of Syrians fleeing the country’s civil war has climbed to over 2 million.
The number includes only those who have registered as refugees with U.N. related organizations so the number could be higher. The total has risen more than one million in the last six months. Continue reading →