(Transcript from World News Radio)
Members of Australia's Assyrian Christian community are anxiously waiting for news of friends and family feared kidnapped by IS militants in Syria.
Hostages were taken en masse during raids on villages in the country's northeast this week.
Efforts to negotiate their release are underway.
Phillippa Carisbrooke reports.
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George Badal is at work, but his thoughts are elsewhere.
On his Assyrian Christian friends in Syria, forced to cross a flooding river in the middle of the night to escape I-S militants.
Four are missing.
"One old lady with her son. And two others. They don't know if it was a kidnapping. Or killed. They don't know nothing about that."
The coffee shop owner is disturbed by reports a woman in his wife's village was murdered as she cleaned a church.
"They cut her neck off. That's what I heard. She was an old lady. Why do you want to kill her? What's she done to you? What's she done?"
Members of Sydney's Assyrian community have been stopping by asking of news.
(sfx ...man speaking...)
This man says, "It's not human what they've done. I can't sleep worrying".
Another says there's "no religion that supports killing".
The militants attacked villages in Hasakah province on Monday.
They burnt at least three churches and took nearly 100 hostages.
About 5,000 people are said to fled for their lives.
The Assyrian Church of the East Relief Organisation in Australia has launched an appeal to help them.
Director Joseph Haweil says it's aiming to raise 300-thousand dollars.
"We are leading an active fund raising effort to health the displaced. They need food, shelter and housing. And we hope in coming days we may be able to raise enough to help them with that."
The Assyrian community's pain is keenly felt by Australia's Coptic Christian community, which is continuing to receive condolences following the execution of 21 Egyptian Copts by I-S last month.
Bishop Anba Suriel of the Melbourne Diocese is praying for them.
"It's very clear that there is a great escalation of persecution of Christians in the Middle East by ISIL. And it is very clear that this group is anti-civilisation."
Some 40,000 Assyrian Christians live in Australia.
The vast majority are refugees - many having fled persecution in Iraq and Syria.
While they've found safety, their kin continue to live in fear.
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