TWO MEMBERS OF THE SYRIAC-CHALDEAN-ASSYRIAN PEOPLE MURDERED IN MOUSUL-IRAQ

On 27th June 2007 at around 10:00 am, two members of the Syriac-Chaldean-Assyrian Christian community in Iraq were brutally murdered in Mousul. Zuhayr Yousef Stayfo (Born in Karemlesh 1958) the head of the Mosul branch of the Bethnahrin Patriotic Union (HBA) and Luay Sleyman Nouman (Born in Tel Esquf 1986) a member of HBA, while driving in a car, their vehicle was stopped by some unknown persons in the city of Mousul and were shot dead. Their bodies were later collected by their colleagues in Mousul.

This latest incident of Mr. Zuhayr Yousef Stayfo and Mr. Luay Sleyman Nouman, who were both members of the Bethnahrin Patriotic Union (HBA), displays the current critical situation that the Syriac-Chaldean-Assyrian Christians are going through in Iraq. Although the Syriac-Chaldean-Assyrians are impartial to the ongoing intercommunity clashes in Iraq, however, they are still being subject to great aggressions by various groups. They are being threatened by some fanatic Islamic groups, forced to convert into another religion other than their own and made to pay Jizyeh (a tax collected from non-Muslims by Muslim rulers). As a result of this backward fundamentalist mentality, without differentiating between young, old, woman, child or cleric, everyday some Syriac-Chaldean-Assyrian Christians are being kidnapped and murdered. The fear and panic has become a part of their daily life. Moreover, because they are defenceless against these attacks they feel that they have no security for their future. As a result, mainly from Baghdad and Mousul, tens of thousands of Syriac-Chaldean-Assyrian people have been forced to leave their houses and flee elsewhere.

Accordingly, the amount of attacks against the Syriac-Chaldean-Assyrian Christian ethnic and religious minority of Iraq has reached an alarming level. Therefore, a system of security should be urgently implemented in order to eliminate such barbaric outcomes. Otherwise, the daily attacks against them will soon turn into an ethnic cleansing. Therefore, we, as the European Syriac Union (ESU), request from the respective representatives of the United Nations, the European Union, the Arab League and the rulers of the Middle Eastern countries, to take a sensitive approach against such atrocities that are targeting the ethnic and religious minorities especially the defenceless Christian minority of Iraq and kindly ask them not to remain indifferent in finding a solution for their inhumane situation.