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American Jewish Committee calls on world leaders to focus help in Iraq

AUGUST 8, 2014 03:34

The American Jewish Committee has called on world leaders to urgently focus on the rapidly deteriorating situation in Iraq, due to the advances of the Islamic State (ISIS), which aims to wipe out any population it deems heretical.

“ISIS barbarity is now a top threat to security and stability in the Middle East,” said AJC executive director David Harris. “The Christian and Yazidi communities in Iraq are on the run, seeking refuge from ISIS forces who do not hesitate to use brutal violence against anyone who does not succumb to their extremist ideology.”

This week alone, some 50,000 Yazidis fled to a mountaintop in Sinjar, and tens of thousands more have fled the area. The ISIS calls the Yazidis “devil worshipers” and has vowed to kill them.

In addition to the besieged Yazidis, Iraqi Christians have been fleeing in droves from their ancestral homes and communities in Mosul, a major city seized by ISIS last month, and now from Nineveh, a center for Iraqi Christians captured by ISIS earlier this week.

ISIS has seized large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, controls parts of the border, and now also poses a serious threat to the Kurdish area of Iraq.

“International condemnation and concrete actions are needed urgently to stem the wave of ISIS mayhem and destruction,” said Harris.

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