Pray for Syria!
Excerpted from Free Burma Rangers about their recent ministry trip to Syria
13 June 2018
Afrin, Syria
A Burma medic, Joseph, treats Yezidi IDPs from Afrin.
Background
Syria is in its seventh year of civil war; 500,000 people have been killed and over 11 million displaced (over six million people internally and over five million refugees have fled the country). And the fighting escalates: Assad’s regime continues to pound rebel-held areas outside of Damascus, Idlib, and other resistance-held areas. The Russians, who are supporting the Assad regime and who had stationed troops in Afrin to block ISIS as well as Turkish ambitions, suddenly abandoned Afrin at the end of 2017.
In January 2018, the Turkish Army, along with elements of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), who in this area are composed of radical Muslim groups and some remnants of ISIS, launched an air and ground campaign from Turkey against the city and area of Afrin, one of the only peaceful areas of Syria. The Kurds had kept ISIS at bay all through the war and Afrin, which historically was 80% Kurdish with an ancient Christian and Yezidi population, had become a refuge for thousands of fleeing Kurds and Arabs of different groups and faiths. Turkey is now presiding over an ethnic cleansing of massive proportions in Afrin.
The Turkish government has led this onslaught in order to crush the YPG Kurds and block their access to the Mediterranean Sea. They consider the Kurds a threat to Turkish security and have no regard for the Christians or Yezidis there. The Turkish government also supports the FSA against the Syrian government and Afrin has become a base for the FSA. A new reign of terror has descended over Afrin.Joint Turkish and FSA attacks have swept over 200,000 Kurds, as well as 35,000 Yezidi and 3,000 Christians from their villages and towns. Their homes have been appropriated by thousands of radical Islamists brought from southern and western Syria, who have also been pushed out of their homes by Assad’s Syrian Army. The original Muslim inhabitants who did not submit themselves to Sharia law and the FSA have also had to flee. Based on interviews, the only church in Afrin city has been looted, burned inside, and then taken over by two militia factions.
Photo: FSA militants on their position north of Menbij
Christians Who Fled Afrin
In Kobane and at a new Christian church of 20 believers, we met with two Christian families who fled Afrin when the FSA and Turkish Army invaded. After the worship service, we talked with the Christians from Afrin, a mother and her 18-year-old son, Baran, her son-in-law, and her pregnant daughter.
They had fled Afrin as the FSA and Turks assaulted the town and region, barely getting out with their lives. The mother told us that there were over 3,000 Christians who used to live in Afrin but now almost all had fled. She only knew of two people who remained: her husband who was too sick to make the walk out and another man who was wounded during attacks.
The Christian mother and her son, Baran, tell their story of fleeing Afrin.While holding back tears she said, “I am a Christian. My husband was too sick to walk out and escape [with us] and he is in hiding in Afrin now. I only have my son and daughter left with me and nothing else in the world. Can you help us? Thank you for coming to see us and for the help you have given. We pray with you for God’s answer and we trust Him.
The FSA and Turks had pushed into Afrin in a brutal series of infantry and armor attacks supported by artillery, helicopter gunships, and jet fighters. Hundreds of civilians were killed and homes destroyed. Many of the Kurd YPG forces were killed and the rest were forced to retreat. The FSA and Turks closed in, killing and looting. People tried to flee.
“Our worst fears were confirmed when Sharia law was installed, homes looted, and people who resisted killed. We Christians fled and most of the 35,000 Yezidi fled as well, fearing a similar annihilation that had occurred in Sinjar, Iraq,” continued the mother.
She went on to share how one woman was captured by the FSA, raped, and then murdered, a video being sent to the woman’s husband.
“My niece, a small child was killed as well,” she shared. “Her name was Riven KhandofanHamdoush and she was killed near us in the village of Kafarganeh. The village is located on the edge of the city of Afrin. On 27 April 2018, when the child was playing in the street, she was shot dead when the Islamic factions were quarreling with each other on the property. Here is her picture.”
The niece, Riven KhandofanHamdoush, shot dead by FSA militants.
“We are very sad and feel hopeless but keep close to Jesus and put our hope in Him. I used to be a Muslim myself but four years ago I got tired of it and asked Jesus to help me. Most of my family are still Muslim but that has not spared them from attack. My niece who was killed was Muslim with Muslim parents,” she said.
Her son, Baran, told us:
“I became a Christian recently when Jesus appeared to me in a dream. In Afrin I worked at a computer shop until the FSA and Turks invaded. It became impossible to stay as airstrikes and artillery hit us. Then the Turkish infantry joined the FSA and, supported by tanks, they destroyed anyone in their path as they advanced. We had to flee and we barely got out, going on foot day and night. I thank the Lord Jesus for helping us to meet with you and sharing our prayers with each other. When we see you, we feel we are humans standing together. I would like to tell you frankly that my mother and I would like to get out of here but there are obstacles that stand in the way. May the Lord take care of you, and that when you shall die it will be with a thousand good things.”
The Church of the Good Shepherd in Afrin
Photo: The church destroyed by an ISIS car bomb.
Baran went on to tell us about a church in Afrin:“The Church of the Good Shepherd was taken over by the FSA and the Turkish Army. The armed factions of the Turkish occupation fought with each other for control and confiscation of the church. The fighting that took place between the two factions of ‘Sultan Murad’ and the ‘Army of the East’ ended with a settlement between the two parties about sharing the church building and surrounding buildings as well as its assets.
They burned the inside of the church and wrote the names of their factions on the outside walls. Before the FSA and Turks arrived, more than 250 Christian families were still in the center of the city of Afrin and [surrounding] villages. Before Afrin was overrun, the priest of the church, Rev. Valentin Hanan, issued a statement of distress to the international community after the start of the Turkish attack on Afrin. He asked for the urgent international protection of the believers in Afrin and the cessation of Turkish bombardment. He said, ‘We are at this moment subjected to heavy shelling and Islamic factions vow to enter the region and we as a church ask the Lord first protection and then the brothers to pray and help.’
Of the estimated 3,000 Christians in the Afrin area, Rev. Hanan said there were 190 families in the city center of Afrin, 45 families in the area ofGendressa, and 15 families in the area of Maabtli. Now that the invasion is complete there are almost no Christians left at all.”
Praying in the church damaged by ISIS that now hosts Yezidis who fled Afrin.
