Hiding under their beds from Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists for eight hours, seven young women prayed Our Lady would save them. She did.
The women’s ordeal started last week when ISIS fighters entered the church-run sanctuary in Kirkuk where the women were living.
Kirkuk is about 60 kilometres to the south of Mosul.
Speaking through an interpreter, the women said it was about 4am when they heard gunfire and explosions outside.
Hearing people in the building, the women, who had already wrapped themselves in blankets to protect themselves from stray bullets, hid and prayed the rosary.
The fighters then came into the room the women were hiding in, using it as a refuge to eat, pray and hide from Iraqi Army forces.
They also used the beds to care for two of their fighters who were wounded.
“Father, help us,” one of them texted Father Roni Momika, a young priest in Erbil who ministers to displaced Christians.
“Are you in contact with the army?”
“Pray to the Virgin Mary. She will protect you” he replied.
I was speaking with them all the time,” Momika says.
He says there was “a strong girl” who told him “Father, I will continue speaking with you and tell you all our news and what ISIS is saying.”
Momika and the young women say their survival is a miracle as ISIS didn’t see them.
Afterwards, one of the girls told Momika “when ISIS entered our room, they didn’t see us [and] we feel that the Virgin Mary closed their eyes from seeing us.”
Source
- CNN
- Catholic News Agency
- Image: Holy Mass images