Hind Safaa has returned to her hometown of Qaraqosh in northern Iraq
after Islamic State fighters were pushed out of the town. She and her
family left the area two years ago due to fears that Islamic State
fighters will target them as religious minorities.
Safaa was
shocked to witness the destruction and ruins brought upon a town she
once called home. Her house where she spent her entire childhood was
destroyed.
"I can't describe how I really feel. All of these
pieces that have been thrown and destroyed carry beautiful memories,"
Safaa said. "These are things that mom and dad worked very hard to
build."
Safaa, her parents and siblings were lucky to have left
the town in August 2014 two hours before Islamic State took over. Some
in town weren't as lucky.
Before IS attacked Qaraqosh, Safaa was going to Mosul's College of Medicine and dreamed of becoming a doctor.
Her family left everything behind, taking refuge in the relatively safer Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.
Safaa told VOA that militants have taken whatever they could and destroyed the rest.
"In
every room, there were shattered parts of furniture, broken plates and
torn clothes making it hard to walk through the house," Safaa said. "It
was so messy because IS fighters were planning to burn the house, but
for some reasons they didn't."
Safaa added that IS burned hundreds
of other houses that belonged to Christian minorities in the area,
including the tall church of St. Mary al-Tahira.
"IS graffiti has
been smeared on its [church] walls, the nave is scorched black by fire
and the altar has been vandalized," Safaa said.
St. Mary al-Tahira
church was once Iraq's largest Christian church, and about 3,000 people
attended the church every Sunday. Its symbolic significance for Iraqi
Christians explains why hundreds of residents rushed back to the town to
re-establish the church in late 2016.
But things for many
Christians including Safaa are not the same anymore. The rebirth of the
Christian community in Qaraqosh and the rest of Iraq seems difficult as
most Christians who fled the town refuse to return, and instead are
embarking on journeys to settle abroad.
IS blow to coexistence
The
mass Christian departure from Iraq has made the future survivability of
the church uncertain in a region where Muslims and Christians have
lived as neighbors for centuries.
IS not only targeted minority Christians, but also broke societal fabrics in Iraq.
"I don't want to live in this place again. I don't want to ever live
next to people who chose to stay under IS rule," Safaa told VOA.
She and her entire family are attempting to leave Iraq and join their community diaspora in Europe.
Migration to the West for her is not only an attempt to find safety, but also a door for opportunities.
"Two
of my friends who moved to France are now preparing to study medicine.
And my high school friend, Maryana, has become a great photographer
there," Safaa said.
Maryana Habash, Safaa's friend from high school, left with her family the night IS attacked Qaraqosh as well.
"The
situation was so complicated that night that I didn't even know where
some of my family members were," Habash told VOA. "I could think about
anything but how to find a safe place for my two little sisters."
Habash and her family took political asylum in France in early 2016. She now lives in Riems, France and began school.
Just like her friend Safaa, Habash, too, thinks Qaraqosh is in her past now.
"I
might want to travel there at some point in the future, but I will
never live there again. The values of human rights are non-existent in
Iraq," Habash said.
Habash says eight more families from Qaraqosh
also are settled in Riems, France, and more are on the way, suggesting
that Riems will become their new Qaraqosh in the future.
Mass
Christian immigration from Iraq is undermining the efforts of Christian
leaders who want to establish an autonomous region for Christians in
northern Iraq with Qaraqosh as its capital.
"Continued mass
migration of our people to the West is the greatest danger to our
existence as a religious minority in Iraq," said Romeo Hakari, who heads
the Bait-al-Nahrain, Assyrian Christian political party in Iraq.
Iraq had 1.5 million Christians
There
is no official data about how many Christians live in Iraq, but it is
estimated that more than 1.5 million Christians lived in Iraq before
2003.
According to Iraqi Christian Relief Council, a non-profit
organization that advocates for Christian minorities in the country,
sectarian violence following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and
systematic targeting of religious minorities by IS and other militant
groups have forced approximately 80 percent of the Christian population
to leave the country.
Hakari of the Baitl-al-Nahrain political
party puts part of the blame for mass Christian immigration from Iraq on
the West for encouraging people to settle in Europe and elsewhere.
"European
embassies in Iraq, especially the French and German embassies, have
facilitated the migration of our people," Hakari said
Western
countries have shown more willingness to accept Iraqi Christian and
Yazidis, citing continued IS persecution of these groups as a
justification. Earlier this year, an official from the U.S. State
Department told VOA that the U.S government and Canada were working to
permanently resettle hundreds of Yazidis and Christians from Iraq.
Iraqi
Christian leaders are continuously meeting with the U.S. and European
officials to discourage such programs, Hakari told VOA.
"Western
countries can play a major role in providing us with assistance to
rebuild our homes and defend ourselves in an autonomous region," he
added.
But for many Christians like Safaa returning is not an option.
"With
time we have realized that it doesn't matter where we live and what
system is in place. What really matters is the people around us."