French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a joint statement on Monday that they are taking steps to ease the suffering of Christians now fleeing northern Iraq en masse.

 

“We will aid those who have been displaced following the threats from the Islamic State [formerly known as Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, or ISIS] and who have taken refuge in [the autonomous Iraqi region of] Kurdistan,” the ministers said in reference to the thousands of Christians who have fled Mosul, Iraq’s second biggest city, in recent days.

 

“We are ready, if they so desire, to help facilitate asylum in our territory,” the statement added, although it did not provide any details about the kind of aid France would provide in northern Iraq or the number of asylum seekers the country would accept.

 

Islamist fighters that took control of Mosul on June 10 have ordered Christians to convert to Islam, pay a "non-Muslim tax" or face death, sending an unprecedented wave of Christian refugees toward Kurdistan. [Link]