Governments call for action against the persecution of ethnic or religious minorities, but such discussions will continue to be futile unless firm military action against ISIL and other such terror groups is on the agenda.
Amid the wretched, often heartbreaking scenes of refugees fleeing to Europe from troubled areas of the Middle East, Africa and Asia, Ozan Sarmad’s story is not exceptional.
Chased by marauding ISIL extremists from his home in the Iraqi city of Mosul, he and his family were told: “Come back and we will kill you by the sword.”
Ozan managed to reach Europe thanks to a scholarship to study engineering. He is now in the northern English city of Sheffield applying for asylum, which has so far been refused.
Persecution and suffering cross many borders and social divisions. But there is one obvious difference between Ozan and the thousands making their hazardous sea crossings and laboured marches or train journeys through Europe.
They are overwhelmingly Muslim. Ozan is Christian.
While Muslims are the principal victims of ISIL, Christians are also targeted and many who are concerned at their plight believe western governments have been slow and sometimes unwilling to respond.
Monsignor Pacsal Gollnisch, a Catholic prelate and director general of the charity, L’Oeuvre d’Orient, which helps Christians in strife-affected areas, says 150,000 of them were driven from their Iraqi villages on two days in August last year.
“They were left to wander the streets, completely abandoned,” Mons Gollnisch says.
He estimates that in 10 years, the number of Christians has dwindled from 2.5 million to 500,000 in Syria, and 1.5 million to 400,000 in Iraq.
Governments readily voice concern and call for collective action to help those displaced or threatened. France and Jordan co-hosted an international Paris conference on the crisis last week.
But while the one-day gathering produced firm words, it left many wondering whether they would be followed by decisive action.
“The participants condemned in the strongest terms the heinous crimes committed, especially by Daesh and its affiliated groups, against civilian populations from all ethnic, religious or other backgrounds,” conference delegates said.
“They expressed particular concern regarding the violence committed on ethnic, religious, or sectarian grounds.
“The atrocities committed in Iraq and Syria, which constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, or even genocide in the case of certain communities, are a source of concern for the entire international community and must not go unpunished.”
The 56 countries and 11 international agencies represented made broad pledges in an outline plan of action on humanitarian, judicial and political issues.
Delegates reaffirmed “their commitment to support the most affected states in the region – Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, and Iraq”, and agreed to reconvene in Spain next year.
But there are doubts about what such discussions can achieve. Even before the Paris meeting, Mons Gollnisch admits that the essential need was to neutralise ISIL, Al Qaeda and other extremists and says this required military solutions that were not even on the agenda.
He welcomed France’s decision to mount reconnaissance flights over Syria, which have prompted the French president, Francois Hollande, to announce this week that air strikes would be launched against ISIL.
In Britain, church leaders have accused prime minister David Cameron of turning his back on Christians despite what they call a threat of genocide in Syria and Iraq.
George Carey, formerly Archbishop of Canterbury, is among the government’s critics and urges Mr Cameron to “welcome Christian refugees and give them priority as asylum seekers”.
Writing last week in The Daily Telegraph, Lord Carey said Christians were at the “bottom of the heap” in the response of western governments to the migrant crisis. The Barnabas Fund, a British charity, says Christians in Iraq add Syria “are being killed, enslaved and persecuted by ISIL and forced to flee from their homes.
Their homes are being destroyed and they have no safe areas in the region”.
Faced with such persecution, many feel they have no choice but to leave.
Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, the Barnabas Fund’s international director, says Britain must offer displaced Christians a safe haven.
But he says that in promising to allow 20,000 Syrians to settle in the UK over five years, Mr Cameron’s government is limiting its offer to those in refugee camps.
This week, the prime minister visited the Zaatari camp in Jordan, home to 90,000 displaced Syrians, and a smaller settlement in Lebanon’s Bekka Valley.
“Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that Christians find it very difficult to live in the camps, where they face threats and violence,” Dr Sookhdeo says. “They do not feel they can stay there.”
The charity says that the Christians escaping the “inhuman butchers” of ISIL have to take refuge in private homes, church buildings or with neighbours and relatives.
Dr Sookhdeo says Europe has a duty to accept vulnerable people irrespective of their ethnic or religious origins and according to need.
He says that Muslim leaders he had met agreed that in Syrian terms, this would imply granting asylum on a ratio of 80 per cent Muslim, 20 per cent Christian.
Mr Cameron did give moral support to beleaguered Christians in this year’s Easter message. “Across the Middle East, Christians have been hounded out of their homes, forced to flee from village to village, many of them forced to renounce their faith or be brutally murdered,” he said. “To all those brave Christians in Iraq and Syria who are practising their faith, or sheltering others, we must say, ‘We stand with you’.”
But these words have so far proved empty, says Dr Sookhdeo.
“At present, Christians are treated like a political football. Governments, including Mr Cameron’s, must start accepting a greater degree of responsibility.” Archbishop Athanasius Toma Dawod, an Iraqi who heads the Syrian orthodox church in the UK, says Christians have become the victims of ethnic cleansing.
“The situation is dangerous and critical. The Christians forced from their homes cannot go home and there is nobody to help them.”
Conflict zones of the Middle East are not the only areas where Christians claim to be under threat. The US-based group International Christian Concern, reported last week that 30,000 Pakistani Christians had been forced to leave and were living in poor conditions in Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Thailand.
Dr Nazir S Bhatti, president of the Pakistan Christian Congress, said in a letter to western leaders that the US, Canada, Australia and Europe should open their doors and grant them asylum.
“Thousands of Pakistani Christian asylum seekers are not economic immigrants, but persecuted Christians who are not rich [enough] to pay huge amounts to human traffickers to reach the shores of Europe,” he wrote.
Back in Sheffield, Ozan watches television footage of the unfolding events in Greece, Turkey, Hungary, Germany and other countries struggling to cope with the waves of migrants.
He says he cannot contemplate returning to Mosul. His family and fellow Christians were given 24 hours to leave after ISIL seized control last June. As they drove from the city, they were stopped, robbed of all possessions and threatened with murder if they returned.
Eventually they reached Ankawa, about 90 kilometres east of Mosul, and found refuge in a church hall, with just one toilet for 100 people. Others lived in tents or caravans or on the streets as Ankawa became a gathering point for escaping Christians.
In February, having been granted his visa to take up the study scholarship, Ozan flew to the UK. But the chaos he had left followed him to Europe; as a knock-on effect of Mosul falling into ISIL’s hands, his funding was stopped.
In Sheffield, he lives among a group of Iraqi, Kurdish and Iranian asylum seekers. He claims to have heard more than one expressing support for ISIL – not a view they would repeat in their dealings with the British authorities.
“I wish my family could join me in the UK but I do not know whether they would get a chance to leave,” Ozan says. “No one is safe from ISIL. They just want to kill and take what they can.”
His message to David Cameron and other European leaders is simple: “Please treat us as refugees and give us help and hope.”
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