CWN - Eight Middle Eastern church leaders, including the patriarchs of the Chaldean Catholic and Syriac Catholic churches, gathered at United Nations offices in Geneva and urged international intervention to protect Christians from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
“Based on international humanitarian laws, the international community has a duty to intervene and a responsibility to protect the affected communities and individuals as per the definitions developed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in the late years,” they said in a joint statement. “The responsibility to protect applies when the State-- as in the Iraqi situation-- is unable to protect its own citizens.”
“We strongly demand that humanitarian, financial, social assistance and security be provided to our communities,” they continued. “It is urgent, especially with the coming of the winter season, to guarantee shelter for the displaced people, adequate living conditions, appropriate medical assistance and schooling for children.”
They added:
While all these provisions are necessary, and urgently so, the appropriate movement of return to abandoned homes and properties must be facilitated by the international community and guaranteed by the action of the United Nations, until the national authorities can exercise their responsibility over all the territory of their country.
The highest priority remains, at this time, the necessity to defeat ISIS and to re-establish the possibility of peaceful co-existence, where the dignity and the rights and duties of each citizen are upheld and respected.
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