Operation Safe Havens (OSH), a project to rescue persecuted Christians from Syria and re-settle them in Australia, has bought plane tickets for 78 out of the 100 people it planned to help in the three-month period which started in March.
‘[The persecution] began in a bakery’, recalled one woman. Two of her brothers were queueing to buy bread when they were killed in a drive-by shooting. The terrorists were from the Jabat al-Nusra rebel group. They drove on to a village nearby, shooting and plundering as they went. The terrorists entered every home, gathered the Christians together and told them to leave and never come back, or they would be killed and their children raped.
When one young man’s father died, he and his mother were left without an adult male to protect and provide for them. ‘We try to get along with people from other religions, but we are always watching our backs’, he said. ‘I have been targeted and chased from my school by some young people; they asked me to withdraw because I am a Christian. They ended up saying that they would kill me if I didn’t convert. I attempted to avoid them at all costs. It reached to extremes when they followed me home and began kicking at my door, saying that they were going to kill my mother and me.’
