Excepts from an article by Carey Lodge in Christianity Today June 28, 2016.

John (name changed for protection), a student in his early 20s, recalled in an interview with persecution charity Open Doors the day that Raqqa was overrun by Islamic State on 13 January 2014.

“They were coming from Iraq with tanks, military vehicles, and even a big rocket that was at least five metres in length,” he said. “It was very intimidating”.

ISIS militants gathered together the church leaders in Raqqa and gave them the now infamous ultimatum leveled at Christians all over its self-proclaimed caliphate: flee, convert to Islam, or pay the ‘jizya’ tax for the right to remain in the city.

At the beginning of 2014 there were around 1,500 Christian families living in Raqqa. After ISIS took over, just 50 remained; the rest having chosen to flee.

John’s family, forbidden from selling or renting their property and afraid of losing their business, decided to stay and pay the jizya, which was initially 54,000 Syrian pounds per man. Last year, that figure more than trebled.

Paying the tax meant they were free to live in Raqqa, but life under ISIS militants was brutal.

“I saw a lot of cruelties. Every Friday they execute people. I was there when they beheaded the first man in public. The man suffered, they couldn’t behead him with the first cut. The man suffered so much they finally killed him with a gunshot,” John said.

“I got really sick because of what they did with all the hundreds of soldiers at the Syrian Army base in Raqqa. They killed all the men and beheaded them. They pinned their heads on a long fence alongside a road I had to pass daily on my way to work. Almost all these soldiers were young men. Two of them were Christians. The men of IS hang their crosses on their ears when then put their heads on the fence. What shocked me too was that I saw people taking selfies with the heads of soldiers.”

Militants also destroyed churches and Shia mosques. “One church building is now a centre for IS,” John added.Without priests or other church leaders, the remaining Christians turned to one another for support. “We visited each other,” he recalled.

This is one reason why Russia is fighting a holy war for Christians in Syria.