The United Nations has declared the highest level of humanitarian emergency in Iraq and has accused Islamic State militants of carrying out “barbaric” acts of sexual violence against women and teenage boys and girls belonging to Iraqi minorities…report by CP

U.N. special representative Nickolay Mladenov said that the declaration by the UN of a “Level 3 Emergency” in Iraq would “facilitate mobilization of additional resources in goods, funds and assets to ensure a more effective response to the humanitarian needs of populations affected by forced displacements,” BBC News reported on Thursday.

The Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS, has taken over significant territory in Iraq and Syria, capturing major cities, carrying out violent attacks on minorities, including Christians, and forcing close to 1.2 million people to flee their homes.

Militants have been accused by humanitarian organizations of violent acts such as beheading children and carrying out “savage rapes.”

“We are gravely concerned by continued reports of acts of violence, including sexual violence against women and teenage girls and boys belonging to Iraqi minorities,” Mladenov and Zainab Hawa Bangura, the special representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, said in a joint statement.

“Atrocious accounts of abduction and detention of Yazidi, Christian, as well as Turkomen and Shabak women, girls and boys, and reports of savage rapes, are reaching us in an alarming manner.”

Bangura and Mladenov added that close to 1,500 Yazidi and Christian persons may have been forced into sexual slavery.

The U.N. officials strongly condemned the targeting of women and children, identifying such acts of sexual violence as “grave human rights violations” that can be considered war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Kurdish officials have meanwhile warned that the situation for 150,000 refugees in Dohuk city is now critical.

The U.N. had estimated that tens of thousands of people, most from the Christian and Yazidi religious minorities, had also been in critical situation on Mount Sinjar, but U.S. forces conducted a brief mission that assessed that many had managed to flee.

The U.S., which last week launched airstrikes into northern Iraq against Islamic State targets, conducted its seventh airdrop of food and water on Wednesday, noting that it had delivered more than 114,000 meals and 35,000 gallons (160,000 litres) of drinking water to those trapped.

The World Health Organization has added that it is supporting the delivery of urgently needed services to those still trapped on Sinjar Mountain.

“The humanitarian situation of the civilian population on Sinjar Mountain is alarming due to the narrow corridors for transporting essentials such as medicines, food and water, especially with the soaring temperatures which are reaching up to 111 degrees Fahrenheit (44 degrees Celsius),” said Jaffar Hussain, WHO’s representative to Iraq.

The U.S. military has announced that it is sending weapons to Kurdistan to aid in its battle against the Islamic State militants. A Christian leader in the Middle East has said that although Christians in the region welcome the help, they believe it is “too late and not enough.”

“[President Barack] Obama needs to do more to slow down Islamic State and to stop [them] completely,” Munir S. Kakish, chairman of the Council of Local Evangelical Churches in the Holy Land, told The Christian Post in an email on Tuesday.

“Yes, they need to send more aid and stop IS both in Syria and Iraq. Stop them to the point of never again [carrying out] barbaric slayings of human beings. If they stop all those foreign groups, this means all the refugees that left can return to their homes. I feel very strongly that the West must move fast and with great power. Yet I feel it is late, but never too late to do the right thing.”

Original Post by Christian Post

The Islamic group known as ISIS has had a serious impact on the lives of young people raised by ISIS members, as well as those infatuated with the group’s ideology…report by CP

“Everywhere our camera went, there seemed to be a young man eager to extol the virtues of the newly formed caliphate,” VICE Media’s Medyan Dairieh reported this week from the Syrian city of Raqqa, which has fallen into ISIS hands.

“I swear to Allah we will divide America in two,” the young boy said. “And we’ll destroy the enemies of the religion of them all, all who fight the Islamic State. We promise car bombs and explosives,” he added.

It’s the same rhetoric used by ISIS’ spokesman, Abu Mosa, who promised to take control of the White House and raise the flag of Allah over the building.

“We will humiliate [the Americans] everywhere, God willing, and we will raise the flag of Allah in the White House,” Mosa said in a video.

Elsewhere in Raqqa, a photograph of a 7-year-old boy holding the severed head of a man was posted to Twitter by his proud father and caused an international stir.

“That’s my boy,” Khaled Sharrouf captioned the photo. It was later removed due to public outcry but not before raising the ire of Americans and garnering the attention of Secretary of State John Kerry, who issued a statement condemning the photo.

It is “one of the most disturbing, stomach-turning, grotesque photographs ever displayed,” Kerry said on Tuesday. “That child should be in school; that child should be out learning about the future; that child should be playing with other kids, not holding a severed head and out in the field of combat.”

“For some reason, he (Sharrouf) thinks that getting his son to hold up a head is going to attract people to his cause,” Clarke Jones, an expert on the radicalization of inmates, told CNN. “I actually think it’s going to have a negative effect. I think it’s going to deter some of those who might have wanted to demonstrate their faith to a religion.”

ISIS is reportedly recruiting younger persons to fight against Christians and other minorities in order to establish the Islamic Caliphate. Not only is there fighting in Iraq, Syria has also been a specific target and Raqqa, a Syrian city, named as the capital of the Caliphate. Young men between the ages of 16 and 25 who are Sunni loyalists are reportedly targets of ISIS recruiters, and one father told the story of his son leaving to join the militant group.

“I don’t know what they told him,” Abu Raad told CNN from his home in Mosul. “Last week, my son came home and told me that he his leaving home and joining the Islamic State. We have heard nothing from him. My wife and I begged him not to do it, but he didn’t listen. He packed and left. My son dreamed of becoming a computer engineer. Now he’s just a terrorist.”

Original Post by Christian Post