By Peter Bugden
BRISBANE Catholic Henriette Ibraham watches TV coverage of tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing into Europe and prays for her relatives trapped in her homeland “surrounded by ISIS”.
Mrs Ibraham, a member of the Greenslopes Maronite parish, has lived in Australia for 38 years, but has all her cousins and “lots of relatives” still in Syria.
“They would love to leave; they’ve been attacked by bombs (in Damascus),” she said.
“They’ve been attacked because they are Christians.”
Mrs Ibraham said a few of her cousins already had been killed, and people were living in fear.
“They fear to move from there; they’re scared to move around the city,” she said.
The women especially were afraid to travel because some had been raped by Islamic State militants.
“They’ve got nowhere to go,” Mrs Ibraham said.
“Lebanon – they can’t take any more (refugees); Jordan – they are a Muslim country; Turkey – a Muslim country.”
Mrs Ibraham said they did not want to leave to live in a refugee camp.
“I wish I could do something for them,” she said.
“Every Sunday we pray, every day I pray.
“Please, don’t forget them; they are surrounded by ISIS.”
St Clement’s, South Brisbane, is a Melkite Catholic parish with many refugees from Syria and Iraq.
Parish priest Fr Elie Francis said he and his parish prayed every Sunday for the people of Syria.
“Lots of (our) people are stuck in Jordan and Lebanon, waiting for visas to come to Australia,” Fr Francis said.
“Many families (in our parish) are waiting for relatives to obtain visas so they can come.”
While Europe struggles to deal with the crisis, photos of a drowned Syrian toddler on a Turkish beach have shocked people and governments around the world into action.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports there has been more than 366,400 refugees arrive by boat across the Mediterranean Sea into Europe this year.
The Federal Government has responded by saying it would increase the number of Syrian refugees accepted but maintain the number of refugees it had committed to for this financial year – about 13,750.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott is under pressure from within his own Government and from Church and community organisations to increase that number.
The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, in its annual Social Justice Statement – “For Those Who’ve Come Across the Seas: Justice for refugees and asylum seekers” – released during the week, called for Australia to substantially increase its humanitarian intake of asylum seekers and refugees.
Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge, in a comment to The Australian on Tuesday, said the Church’s welfare agencies and migrant communities were equipped to settle, accommodate, feed and educate Syrian refugees.
“We are already doing that,’’ he said.
Archbishop Coleridge said Australia, through its involvement in two Iraq wars, had contributed in a small way to the international political failures that had added to the “demonic tapestry’’ woven by Islamic State and other terrorists.
