In this July 20, 2014, file picture, Christian families who fled Mosul can be seen as taking refuge in the town of Qaraqosh AFP
AFP
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called Thursday for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council after Islamist militants seized Iraq's largest Christian town, forcing tens of thousands to flee.
"Given the seriousness of the situation -- the first victims of which are civilians and religious minorities -- France is requesting an urgent meeting of the Security Council so the international community can mobilise to counter the terrorist threat in Iraq and support and protect the population at risk," Fabius said in a statement.
Gunmen from the Sunni Muslim Islamic State (IS) seized Qaraqosh, Iraq's largest Christian town, and several others near Mosul following the withdrawal of Kurdish peshmerga fighters, inhabitants said.
Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako called the occupation part of a "humanitarian disaster" that has displaced 100,000 Christians and seen churches occupied, their crosses removed and manuscripts burned.
In mid-July, thousands of Christians in Mosul fled after IS gave them an ultimatum to convert to Islam, pay jizya (protection money) or leave on pain of death.
The exodus raised concern in Western capital, and governments began to accept the fleeing Christians as refugees.
Before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the country had an estimated Christian population of more than one million, including more than 600,000 in Baghdad, 60,000 in Mosul and concentrations in the oil cities of Kirkuk and Basra.
The latest estimates put the overall number at around 400,000 with more than half living in the northern Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital.
Patriarch Sako says there were around 35,000 in Mosul before the IS launched an offensive, though other sources give lower figures, and almost all have since fled.
