Franz-Stefan Gady
Khalid Zaki is an acting coach. A few months ago the 35-year-old
Arabian Christian stage managed Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice at a
local theater in Qarakosh. Today, he is one of approximately 100,000
Christians who sought refuge from the wrath of the Islamic State in and
around Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
“We came here in the morning of August 7, most of us with nothing but
our clothes on,” Khalid recounts. The Christian exodus was total. More
than 40,000 Christian refugees fled Quarakosh — until then the largest
Christian town in Iraq. According to refugees interviewed, there are but
120 Christians left in Qarakosh, who are employed by the Islamic State
as auxiliaries to prevent looting in the abandoned Christian homes.
In Erbil, Nazar Hana, a manager at the Nisthiman Mall in the city
center, opened up the whole sixth floor of the building to around 1,100
Christian refugees. Due to construction delays, funding problems, and
local opposition by shopkeepers, the Nishtiman Mall was never completed
and is now in a derelict state, with only a few shops open on the first
and second floors, as well as a thriving black-market in the basement of
the building.
The 1,100 refugees at Nishtiman Mall have benefitted from media
attention to the plight of Iraq’s minorities fleeing ISIS. Christian
NGOs, UNHCR, as well as the International Red Cross are delivering food
and medical supplies. Some of their living space is even air-conditioned
which with outside temperatures of over 100 degrees is a vital
necessity and in stark contrast to their lives two weeks ago.
And while there are only enough matresses for the women and children
to lie down on (the men sleep on the marble floor), the mall refugees
are better off than most of the other Christians, spread out in
approximately 23 camps in the city and its vicinity, and who often have
to make do with mere tents or canvases shielding them from the
elements. This, however, is little comfort for the displaced people of
Qarakosh who see the most recent attacks as perhaps the final act in
their expulsion from Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians
have left the country in the last two decades. Estimates of the
remaining total number of Iraqi Christians are as low as 200,000.
Leaving Qarakosh
While sipping a cup of chai, Khalid Zaki recounts the last 24 hours
in the city: “On the morning of August 6, the Pesh Merga promised to
defend us to the death and we believed them once the shooting started.”
IS fighters began shelling the city with both artillery rounds as
well as missiles. Soon the first casualties appeared. With tears in his
eyes, Kaleed Kackwani, a 27-year-old construction worker, tells the
story of his neighbor’s children who were killed while playing in the
street. A shell exploded in their midst, killing two boys, aged 12 and
five, as well as a 10-year-old girl: “One of the boys was torn apart by
the shell and all that was left of him was one arm and one leg. His
family collected his remains in a nylon bag. People were panicking.”
“Around 5 p.m. we gathered for the funeral of the children,”
continues Khalid, who lives in the same neighborhood as Kaleed. “Then
the congregation held a service at the Church of Saint Mary. After the
service I went home.” On August 7, at 3 a.m. Khalid received the news
that the Pesh Merga had started withdrawing from their defensive
positions. He and his family lost no time. They got into their car and
started heading towards Erbil. On the road they were held up at Pesh
Merga checkpoints. “It took us five hours to pass one single
checkpoint,” tells Khalid.
Khaleed Kackwani explains that Ram, the brother of his wife, was hit
in the head by a bullet while caught in the crossfire of IS fighters and
retreating Pesh Merga forces at one of the three checkpoints that
Kurdish forces had set up between Qarakosh and Erbil. “There was nothing
we could do for him. We had to leave him behind. It took us 15 hours to
cover the 80km from Quaraqosh to Erbil. The road was filled with cars
and refugees. We were only allowed to pass the checkpoint one by one.”
The same night ISIS suicide bombers tried to break through a Pesh
Merga checkpoint with a stolen ambulance but were spotted and killed
before detonating the charge.
In the room next to Khaleed’s, Bydaa Bhnam Khtya, mother of three,
also recounts the long wait in front of the checkpoints leading to
Erbil. She and her husband owned a gas station and a chicken farm in
Qarakosh. Dressed in pajamas, a baby girl on her lap, she emphatically
states that she will not return to Qarakosh: “I do not trust the Pesh
Merga anymore. They left us undefended. I do not trust anyone anymore
connected to the Iraqi government.”
Majeed Iyu Gorgies and his four sons fled on August 6. He sits on his
bed in a small room on the 6th floor in the Nishtiman Mall resting his
left leg on a worn out matrass. He lost his right leg in March 2003
during an American aerial bombardment at the beginning of the Iraq War.
He was sitting in a café in Mosul when the bombs were dropped: “It was
March 31, 2003 at exactly 6 p.m. when three bombers dropped half a dozen
bombs on our neighborhood. Nine people were killed and 45 wounded — I
was one of them.” Numbers are still hugely important for the 55-year-old
former teacher of mathematics.
Majeed Iyu Gorgies story is typical of the lives of many Christians in Iraq in the last few decades.
Majeed wanted to become a teacher. He studied natural science and
mathematics at Mosul University. Yet, two months after my graduation the
war with Iran started. “I had to serve for five years in an anti-tank
unit and fight on the frontlines. Only then was I allowed to begin
teaching. After another five years the next war came and the school
officials laid me off because I was not a member of the Baath party, and
in addition, as a Christian, I was considered anti-patriotic.” Until
2003 he had to work on various construction sites as a floor tiler, and,
although the American invasion cost him a leg, he was immediately
singled out as a traitor by Sunni extremists once the insurgency
intensified in Mosul. In 2007, he had to flee his beloved hometown: “The
extremists called us and told us that they would come over in 10
minutes and kill me and my family unless I left the town immediately.”
The family moved to Qaraqosh. Now in August 2014 they had to flee again.
According to some sources, Iraqi and Kurdish forces are planning the
recapture of Mosul as well as Qarakosh. Yet only a few Christians are
thinking of returning to the city once it is liberated. They are scared.
According to Khalid many Muslims welcomed the IS fighters to Qarakosh.
In disbelief he relates the story that former Muslim students of his
tried to convince him on the phone that it was safe to return to the
city.
“We will only return under the protection of an international
intervention force,” Rabee Yussef Sorani emphatically states, the
unofficial spokesperson of the refugees at the mall. Majeed has resigned
himself to indefinite exile, but like so many he does not know where to
go: “Mosul, Qarakosh, and now Erbil! How far do I need to run to escape
the war? Where do we go from here?”
