When asked what she prays for, 11-year-old Myriam Behnam was quick to answer. “When I pray, I pray that God might help us to go back home,” she said, “and that the peace of God might come all over Iraq. And also, may God forgive ISIS.” Myriam, her 10-year-old sister, Zamarod, and their parents, Walid and Alice, fled their home near Mosul, Iraq, more than a year ago when the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) gained control of Mosul and the Nineveh plains. Since that time, the family has lived in the northern Kurdistan Region along with more than 1 million other displaced Iraqis. Life is not easy in the refugee camp, but Myriam doesn’t harbor any bitterness. “I will only ask God to forgive [ISIS],” she said in a March 2015 interview with SAT-7 TV. “Why should they be killed?” Myriam’s surprising forgiveness of ISIS reached millions after being broadcast on the Christian satellite TV station. Although it’s difficult to know how many people watched the interview on SAT-7, its five channels reach an audience of 15 million in North Africa and the Middle East. In addition, the video was copied digitally numerous times and went viral on social media,
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The evening of August 20, 2014, Abu Fadi received an urgent call from his mother. “Abu, come for me,” she cried from the Iraqi city of Mosul. Before he could respond, an Islamic State (ISIS) fighter grabbed the phone and asked Abu to confirm that he was her son. “Yes, I am her son,” Abu replied. “What is the problem?” “Today, come and take your mother and sister,” the fighter said. “If you will not come today, we will throw them in the street. Either they will be Muslim or we will leave them in the street. You just come and take them.” The ISIS fighter took all the family’s money and belongings, closed up their house and painted the Arabic letter “N” on the home, indicating Nassarah, or “Christian”. Knowing he couldn’t enter Mosul as a Christian, Abu asked a Muslim friend to bring his elderly mother and sister — both in wheelchairs — to his nearby city, which had recently come under ISIS control. Once there, the two women joined Abu and his wife and they drove toward Bashiqa in the north. However, shortly after starting their journey, their car was stopped at an ISIS checkpoint by fighters
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