by frances martel a syrian christian mother shared her story of escaping the islamic state terrorist group in a suburb of damascus while losing her son, george, after he refused to identify himself to the terrorists by a muslim name. 




the woman, alice assaf, said that she had heard that her son, who was beaten and shot to death, was spared a much worse fate: being baked in the ovens of the local bakery or <u+201c>kneaded<u+201d> to death in the bakery<u+2019>s industrial-sized mixer. 




assaf told her story to roads of success , a human rights ngo with a focus on the rights of women and christians in the middle east. the group has provided testimony of the plight of christians and yazidis persecuted by the islamic state to the house foreign relations committee and regularly publishes video interviews with isis attack survivors. 




the christian post picked up the story and video interview, in which assaf narrates the final days of her 18-year-old<u+2019>s life. 




assaf says her suburb was targeted two years ago by islamic state jihadists. she and her children hid in the home of a muslim neighbor when she first heard that isis had come to town to kill its christian population. 




<u+201c>later on, we heard that the militants grabbed six strong men working at the bakery and burned them inside the oven. after that, they caught some 250 kids and kneaded them like dough in the bakery dough machine,<u+201d> she said. 




when the army of dictator bashar al-assad arrived to quell the isis uprising, the jihadist began throwing children off of balconies and roofs in an attempt to scare the soldiers away. <u+201c>the oldest was 4,<u+201d> she recalls. 




the killing, <u+201c>in the beginning<u+2026> was against christians,<u+201d> but they later started killing anyone who they believed affiliated to the syrian army. assaf and her family were betrayed by the muslim neighbor who hid them. she pleaded with her eldest son, george, to use a muslim name and deny his faith. <u+201c>i don<u+2019>t want to hide myself,<u+201d> assaf says her son said, <u+201c>you are the one who taught me to follow what christ said: whoever denies me before men, i will also deny them before heaven.<u+201d> <u+201c>they took him to the backyard to shot and kill him<u+2026> they killed him because his name was <u+2018>george,<u+2019><u+201d> a christian name, she notes. george was buried in a mass grave, and assaf does not know his whereabouts. while assaf managed to escape, many christian communities in syria and iraq remain under siege. one of the largest regional christian population centers <u+2013> mosul, iraq <u+2013> remains under islamic state control, with a coalition of iraqi soldiers, kurds, and shiite militias working to liberate it. there is no guarantee that christians will return to repopulate those areas. roads of success has profiled those christians who insist on staying in iraq and syria and, perhaps even more dangerous, proselytizing their faith. <u+201c>the great thing is that 




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syrian mother: isis baked christians adults, <u+2018>kneaded<u+2019> christian children in bakery machines
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