Nearly all gone

FEW of the Christian women fleeing to safety in northern Iraq arrived wearing rings in their ears or on their fingers. Fighters of the Islamic State, the self-proclaimed new name of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), the jihadist group that captured Mosul last month, relieved them of just about everything valuable—except their lives.

A week ago the Christians in the city were told they had until July 18th to convert to Islam, pay a special tax, leave, or, in the words of a statement by the jihadists, they would have “nothing but the sword.” But then the jihadists changed their mind: paying the tax was no longer an option. All Christians were told by loudspeaker on July 18th that they all had to leave by the next day—or be killed.

The Arabic letter for N for Nassarah, meaning Christian, was spray-painted on their houses, with stencils declaring them to be “Property of the Islamic State”. Monks from the monastery of Mar Behnam, near Qaraqosh, south-east of Mosul, were allowed to take only the clothes they were wearing. “You have no place here any more,” the jihadists are reported to have said.

Some reckon that a decade ago there were around 60,000 Christians in Mosul; by June this year that figure is said to have fallen by half. Now, for the first time in over 1,600 years, the city will have been emptied of Christians. The Mar Behnam monastery dates from the 4th century. Other sects, including Shia Muslims and Yazidis, who follow an ancient religion linked to Zoroastrianism, are being equally harshly treated.

Most of Mosul’s Christians have fled east and north to the nearby autonomous region of Kurdistan. “Here is the last chance Christians have for survival,” says Kaldo Ramzi Oghanna of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, a political party tied to one of the world’s most ancient Christian denominations.