The beheadings and shootings publicised by the group are the latest assault on minorities across the Middle East, thousands of whom have been forced to abandon ancestral homes to flee the group’s broadening reach in the region.
It follows a video released in February that showed the beheading of 21 Egyptian Copts on the shores of the Mediterranean, a move that prompted air strikes by the government of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi against the group’s stronghold in a Libya torn by civil strife.
The footage, released on Sunday, depicts the brutal beheading of 15 Ethiopian Christians by masked Isis militants, their blood staining the surf on a strip of beach, as well as another scene in a desert landscape where masked gunmen shoot another 15 Ethiopians with rifles in the back of the head.
“To the nation of the cross, we’re back again,” says a masked militant in the video before the execution. “Muslim blood that was shed under the hands of your religion is not cheap.”
Ethiopia hit out at the atrocity. “We strongly condemn such atrocities, whether they are Ethiopians are not,” the Ethiopian communications minister Redwan Hussein told AFP.
The 29-minute video, titled Until There Came to Them Clear Evidence, appeared to be primarily aimed at offering religious justification for the targeting of Christians, saying their slaughter is permitted if they refuse to convert to Islam or decline to pay a protection tax in lands where the terror group holds sway.
It also sought to depict Christians living in areas under its control as being treated respectfully and fairly by its courts.
No comments:
Post a Comment