***
Nuri Kino is a Sweden-based independent investigative reporter,
filmmaker, author, Middle East and human-rights analyst. His report, titled
”The Camp,” which examined the construction of a massive refugee camp for
Syrian Christians inside Turkey, appeared May 5 at World Watch Monitor.
Early this morning I received a phone call from Mary, a friend in
Sweden who was born in Syria. She wanted me to check my Facebook account. A
young Syrian woman, Nour, wanted to become friends with me. I accepted the
request. A minute later, Nour wrote me her first message. She had pictures from
Tabqa, a town that was totally emptied of Christian Assyrians. Nour also had
the contact information of victims of fundamentalist Islam. They, the victims,
want the world to know what has happened to them. A group of non-Syrian
Mujahedeen drove them out of their homes.The message from the perpetrators was
”convert to Islam or leave”. I called one of the victims, and heard horrifying stories about religious and ethnic
cleansing.
Christians in Syria are a vulnerable group. They comprise
approximately 8 percent of the population.
Tabqa used to be a modern city with cinemas, hairdressers, fashion
boutiques and restaurants. Now it is driven by men in beards who no longer
allow any of that.
An hour after my interview with that refugee, US Secretary of
State John Kerry declared ”there must be accountability” on behalf of the victims
of a chemical weapon attack. Considering all the evidence emerging from
witnesses, from images, from human-rights groups and from medical
information provided by Doctors Without
Borders, Kerry said ”these all strongly indicate” that ”chemical weapsons were
used in Syria,” and that they were fired by the Syrian government.
Doctors Without Borders didnt’ appreciate its medical reports
being used as a justification for possible military action. It issued a
statement stressing that only ”an independent investigation” can determine
whether the hundreds of boides arriving at hospitals Aug. 21 were killed by
chemical weapons, and that the organization has not placed blame anywhere.
While I tuned in to YouTube to listen to Kerry’s speech again, an
Assyrian refugee who has taken shelter in Lebanon called me. Ninos wanted to
know whether I thought NATO will bomb Syria. His family remains in Syria. They
fled from rebel-controlled Homs to regime-controlled suburbs. They feel safer
in areas where the regime can protect them, where al-Nusra or other
fundamentalist Islamists can’t persecute them. Ninos said he’s afraid that, if
the U.S. and its allies enter the war, Christians will be suffer doubly, and
that they will be bombed along with Alawites, a Muslim sect that 15 percent of
Syrians, including President Bashar al-Assad, belong to.
At the end of his speech, Kerry declared the US must protect the
most vulnerable. I wondered if he, and the American allies currently expressing
outrage, have thought about Christians like Ninos, his family, and Nour. They
have not killed a single soul. They definitely have not gassed anyone. And they are the most vulnerable Syrians of
all.
Translations are in alphabetical order
Armenian (VA), French (KT), German (SO) Russian (AA), Spanish (JY),
Turkish (AM)
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