French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a joint statement yesterday that they are taking steps to ease the suffering of Christians now fleeing northern Iraq en masse, the France 24 website reports today (July 29, 2014).
"We will aid those who have been displaced following threats from the Islamic State (IS), and who have taken refuge in [the autonomous Iraqi region of] Kurdistan," the ministers said in reference to the thousands of Christians who have fled Mosul -- Iraq's second largest city -- in recent days.
"We are ready, if they so desire, to help facilitate asylum in our territory," the statement added.
Extremist Islamist fighters -- who took control of Mosul on June 10 -- have ordered its Christians to convert to Islam, pay a "non-Muslim tax," or face death. This deadly decree has resulted in a plethora of Christians fleeing from the IS.
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