Al-Rahi Urges from Yerevan for World Recognition of Armenian Genocide
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi has urged the international community to recognize the Armenian genocide, expressing fears of further such atrocities against Christians in the world.
Al-Rahi, who is in Armenia to attend the ceremony to mark the centenary of the World War I killings by Ottoman Turks, was quoted by the National News Agency as saying on Thursday that “the international community and people with goodwill should recognize the genocide.”
“If they don't do so, then other genocides will be committed,” he said.
More than 20 nations, including France and Russia, have recognized the genocide against the Armenians.
Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to flock to the towering genocide memorial in Armenia's capital Yerevan on Friday to mark the start of the tragedy.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their ancestors were killed in a military campaign aimed at eradicating the Armenian people from Anatolia, in what is now eastern Turkey.
Al-Rahi “expressed fears that similar crimes would take place in the world, mainly in the Middle East” after Islamic State militants executed Egyptian Copts and Ethiopians in Libya.
An IS video, released on Sunday, showed the militants in Libya holding captives who they described as "followers of the cross from the enemy Ethiopian Church.”
It showed one group of about 12 men being beheaded on a beach and another group of at least 16 being shot in the head in a desert area.
The IS posted a similar video in February showing the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians.
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