A Christian man from IS' stronghold of Mosul, Iraq has shared, in an attempt to force him to convert to Islam, militants strung him up from the ceiling of a jail cell and violently tortured him with nails and barbed wire - yet he refused to deny Christ.
Carlos, a refugee from Mosul living in Jordan, shared with Christian Aid Mission how, when ISIS invaded Mosul in the summer of 2014, they gave Christians four options: leave, convert to Islam, pay a protection tax (jiyza) or be killed.
When Carlos refused to comply with ISIS' demands, militants took him to a location he did not know and hung him upside down by one leg.
"They tortured me by electric shock, beat me with sticks stuck with nails and bound me with barbed wire," he recalled. "They put salt on my wounds. I was shouting from the intense pain."
The torture continued until he appeared in court, where a judge told him that he had to become a Muslim to save his life.
"I refused and said, 'If I die, I will die proud, because I am a Christian,'" he said. "The judge responded, 'You will be shot and executed on Sept. 26."
On that date in 2014, they took him to the outskirts of Mosul, but before the execution the militant in charge went to a corner to call a superior. He returned saying he had orders to leave the Christian there. Kicking and hitting Carlos, ISIS members threw him from a car, the young man said.
"I tried to walk, but after a while, my bleeding wounds caused me to fall down and pass out," he said.
Eventually, the young man regained consciousness in a hospital in Kirkuk.
"In Iraq, they could not treat my leg and told me it needed to be amputated," he said. "But then I went to Spain, and my leg was treated in the Spanish hospital through an organization. Thank God I can walk now, but I have nothing to live on here in Jordan."
Although there was over 1.5 million Christians in Iraq before conflict began in 2003, a report released in May revealed that that as much as 80 percent of Iraq's Christian population has fled from their homes, leaving less than 275,000 believers in the country.
An independent United Nations commission on Syria ruled in June that IS has committed genocide against Yazidis; however, it hasn't yet ruled that the group has committed genocide against Christians.
Speaking to The Gospel Herald, Chaldean American Spokesman Mark Arabo said, "The world has not seen a humanitarian crisis like Iraq and Syria since the Holocaust, it's a full-blown Christian genocide. Our churches are being destroyed, our museums wiped out, women and children wiped out because of their faith. We are hopeful that we will get some confirmation from Washington that President-elect Trump and the new congress will work together to make sure that they end this genocide."
He added, "We need to stay the course and make sure that those in the camps are not forgotten about, and let the world know that history will not be kind to any elected official that does not save the victims of this genocide."
