By The Washington Post in AINA
Fay Abuelgasim
Fay Abuelgasim
In the main square in the northern Iraqi town of Bartella stands a large
cross, one of the few overt signs the town was historically Christian.
Nearby,
a massive billboard shows Shiite Muslim martyrs alongside a photo of
Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini. Posters of Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen
killed in fighting with the Islamic State group hang on streets all
around the city, along with banners to revered historical Shiite saints.
Thirty
years ago, Bartella's population was entirely Christian. Demographic
changes over the decades left the town split between Christians and an
ethnic group known as Shabak, who are largely Shiites. When the Islamic
State group overran the town and the rest of northern Iraq in 2014,
Bartella's entire population fled -- since both communities were
persecuted by the radicals.
But two years after Bartella was
liberated from IS, fewer than a third of its 3,800 Christian families
have come back. Most remain afraid, amid reports of intimidation and
harassment by Shabak, who dominate the Shiite militias now controlling
the town.
Catholic priest Behnam Benoka claimed that the Christian
community is being pushed out by the Shabak. He also said multiple
cases of sexual harassment have been reported to him and even one
robbery of a little girl whose gold earrings were stolen. At one point,
Shabak men fired guns in the air front of the town's church for over an
hour.
Iqbal Shino, who moved back to Bartella with her family in
November 2017, said a Shabak man grabbed her from behind in a market.
She screamed and the man was caught by onlookers. She filed a complaint
with the police but later dropped it to avoid problems.
"I feel like because I was a Christian, he assaulted me so that they can scare us to leave Bartella," she said.
The
town's divisions point to the broader tensions around northern Iraq in
the wake of the dispersal caused by the Islamic State group. Now that IS
is gone, sectarian divisions are bubbling up the surface, and multiple
political and armed groups are vying for power and influence, said Renad
Mansour is a research associate at Chatham House, a think tank.
"That's
the main priority now: Who can carve out the most influence in the area
and naturally that creates a precarious security environment," he said.
Qusay
Abbas, the Shabak representative in parliament in Baghdad, said
incidents of harassment against Christians are just individual acts that
don't represent the community of Shabak or the militias, which are part
of the government-sponsored Population Mobilization Forces.
"The
security apparatus has a lot of factions so it's inevitable that some
mistakes would happen. There are some violations, and a lot of things,
sometimes stealing, misusing their position to get money, we know that,"
said Abbas, who is based between Bartella and the capital. "But that
doesn't mean that everyone is bad."
He said the Shabak suffered just as much as the Christians from IS.
"They
both suffered collectively, so I say to the Christians brothers, please
don't rely on some rumors and sectarian speeches," he said. "We can
solve these problems we just need to sit down together."
The
Christian community in Iraq has plummeted in the last 15 years because
of attacks by Islamic militant groups, including al-Qaida and IS. An
estimated 1 million Christians were living in Iraq before the U.S.-led
invasion of 2003; today only a fraction remains. The Islamic State group
takeover the north only worsened the disaster for the Christians,
sending them fleeing for safety in the autonomous Kurdish region, where
most remain.
Bartella's demographic changes began around 30 years
ago, when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein nationalized farmland that used to
belong to Christians and gave it to families of soldiers killed in the
Iran-Iraq war. This brought an influx of Shabak. After Saddam was
toppled in 2003, another batch of Bartella land was given to families of
Shabak Shiite martyrs.
Most of Bartella's Shabak population has
returned, bringing life back to their neighborhoods. In contrast, the
town's Christian districts are largely deserted. In one, called, Hay
al-Muallimeen, many of the houses were destroyed in fighting, and only
around one and four has anyone living in it.
Security is now run
by the Popular Mobilization Forces, known by the Arabic name "Hashed."
Its fighters, who in Bartella are mostly Shabak, run checkpoints in the
streets and act as police.
One of the biggest points of contention
in Bartella is the removal of the Ninewa Protection Unit, a
semi-autonomous police force made up mainly of Christians that guarded
the town until the IS takeover. Its fighters have fled to Kurdish areas
and have not returned. That is one reason Christian families have been
wary of returning.
"The Christian is the weakest link the Iraqi
society," said Ammar Shamoun Moussa the head of the NPU. "When there is
stability and there is a law in the land, I think a lot of families
would come back."
Bartella city council member Jalal Boutros said
the NPU is "part of our identity and protect it and validates our
presence." He pointed to worries that some Shiite militiamen in Hashed
are just as extremist as Sunni militants in IS, which is widely known by
its Arabic acronym, Daesh.
"Even if the Daesh weapons have gone, the thinking is still there," he said.
The trust between the communities is gone.
Salim
Harihosan, a Christian, returned to Bartella in 2017, and like many
families found his house destroyed. An NGO helped him rebuild.
But
he regrets his decision to come back and said he is haunted by fears
over lawlessness, sectarian splits and potential violence. He said he
wakes up five times a night to check if his car is safe and is looking
to rent an apartment in the Kurdish-zone city of Erbil, just in case.
"It
is a psychological situation ... I go to the market and I hear things,
that maybe this or that happened," he said. "These things play with the
mind of the person living here."
In the church in the neighborhood
of Ankawa, in Erbil, hundreds of Christians, many from Bartella prayed
and sang hymns on a recent day.
One of them, 72-year-old Habiba
Kiyaqos, lived in Bartella all her life but doesn't see herself ever
returning. Her house is wrecked, her possessions are gone, and she's
afraid of becoming the victim of religious extremists -- whether Sunni
militants like IS or Shiite militiamen.
"I really want to go to sleep in Bartella, but I am scared they will come and attack us."
