Christian and Yazidi Iraqis lament the dire future facing their minority communities in new video footage obtained by Breitbart News. Both groups have nearly been eradicated by the genocidal Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
“We do not have any future here,” proclaimed Rooney Sakaria, a member of the Baghdad-sanctioned Assyrian Christian fighting group known as the Nineveh Plain Protection Units (NPU).
“Maybe we do not have life here,” he stressed.
Sakaria made his comments during a discussion with a Yazidi translator who asked to use the pseudonym Adam for fear of his safety.
The Yazidi translator agreed with the NPU Fighter that there is no future for their communities in Iraq.
“We [have] the same problems,” declared Adam, adding, “It’s just from genocide to genocide to genocide. We’ve lost a lot Christians. We’ve lost a lot of Yazidis. We have lost even a lot of Sunnis. We’ve lost a lot of Shias, but we’re still the victims as minorities.”
Through the perspective of an Iraqi Catholic priest, a member of a Christian militia, a radio D.J., and a translator, the footage provided a glimpse of the conflicting emotions felt by many members of the war-devastated country’s minority groups.
“We all know that the world is not fair, okay?” said Assyrian-Chaldean Christian Noor Mati, a radio DJ from Detroit currently based in the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan Erbil.
“We don’t ask for too much — just a chance to survive [and] just a chance to be alive, that’s it,” added the DJ and founder of the Shlama Foundation, an organization that helps refugees.
A Breitbart News source, who asked to be identified only as M.P. for fear of retaliation, spoke to the Christians and Yazidi in different parts of Iraq last month as the U.S.-backed local forces fought to push ISIS out of Mosul, the capital of northern Iraq’s Nineveh province.
Retaking Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, is expected to break the jihadist organization’s hold over its territory in the country and break its so-called caliphate up. The fight for Mosul, believed to be the ISIS’ last major stronghold, has been raging since mid-October.
Despite the toll the ISIS-perpetrated genocide took on their community, not all Christians expressed reservations about their current predicament and future.
Father Immanuel, a Syriac Catholic priest from the besieged city of Mosul, expressed confidence that President Donald Trump will keep his promise to protect and support the ethnoreligious minority groups victimized by ISIS.
“I prayed for Trump until he became the president because I love him,” the Catholic priest, who also serves as the manager of a refugee camp, said during an interview, later adding, “Trump is the voice of the minority people who live in the Middle East. He is the only one who understands our suffering…”
Father Immanuel’s comments echo other Christians in Iraq who recently expressed hope in President Trump.
Sakaria and Adam also expressed some optimism that President Trump may alleviate their precarious situation.
“I think Mr. Trump can do something for these communities,” said the NPU fighter.
“We hope that,” added Sakaria. “Thank you, Mr. Trump, if you can do something.”
The anti-ISIS fighter from Qaraqosh, the largest Christian town in northern Iraq’s Nineveh province before ISIS destroyed it.
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