When ISIS arose in 2014, the jihadist force swept across northern
Iraq and carried out an ethnic cleansing campaign of Christian villages
as part of a broader genocidal plan to wipe out all religious and ethnic
minorities.
Approximately 100,000 displaced Christians found refuge in the
Kurdish-controlled population centre of Erbil, said Philipp Ozores,
international secretary general of Aid to the Church in Need. ACN, a
papal humanitarian agency, closely monitors the situation on the ground,
including the number of Christians who are still classified as
internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Iraq.
After years of fighting, Iraqi, Kurdish and international forces have
finally defeated ISIS in Iraq, driving them off the Nineveh Plain, the
traditional homeland of ethnic Assyrians and other ancient Christian
communities in the north.
This Christmas season, tens of thousands of displaced Christians are
returning to their recently liberated villages for the first time in
more than three years.
“The situation is hopeful in spite of tensions, which are still there
in the region currently between the Kurdish Regional Government and the
Iraqi central government,” said the leader of Aid to the Church in
Need, which serves persecuted and vulnerable Christians around the
globe. The nongovernmental organization (NGO) has a permanent presence
in Iraq.
“In spite of this tension, Christians are now already returning from
Erbil, the regional capital Kurdistan, where they have been living since
ISIS expelled them,” Ozores said in a telephone interview from ACN’s
Montreal offices.
Ewelina Ochab, a legal researcher and genocide expert, is cautiously
optimistic this Christmas season. “I do believe that many Christians
will celebrate Christmas in the Nineveh Plain with more and more hope
for the future,” said Ochab, author of the 2016 book Never Again: Legal
Responses to a Broken Promise in the Middle East.
Ochab has been to Iraq to collect evidence of genocide and interview
survivors. For example, she met with displaced Christians in Erbil. She
also visited a number of liberated towns and villages that had
previously been under ISIS occupation, including Quaragosh, Karamless
and Bartallah.
“There is definitely more hope than last year this time,” she said.
Home for Christmas
According to International Christian Response (ICR), Assyrians and
other Christians have been returning to their villages since before the
Kurds held a referendum on independence in September. “Regional politics
have weighed heavily against Christians, and other minority
populations,” said an official with International Christian Response
(IRC) who is on the ground in Iraq. For reasons of personal security,
the ICR official cannot be named.
“Most of the 18,500 refugees ICR deals with directly were helped back
to their hometowns in or around Mosul,” said Karen Ellis, who is also
with ICR, serving as the organization’s ambassador.
ICR is a humanitarian organization that provides spiritual and
material support to Christians in places where traditional missionaries
cannot go. According to Ellis, “ICR helped significant numbers of
Christian families when they first fled the Nineveh Plain,” providing
life-saving assistance to IDPs living in harsh outdoor mountain camps.
More recently, clashes between the Iraqi army and the Kurdish
Peshmerga on the Nineveh Plain disrupted the organization’s plan to
distribute aid to the returning Christians. Many of the IDPs reportedly
had to flee again to Kurdistan when the fighting broke out.
“When Christians went back to the Christian villages after the
[Kurdish independence] referendum, we promised to help them resettle in
Nineveh Plain,” Ellis said. “Over the next two weeks, ICR will
distribute food to as many of these areas as possible.”
According to Ozores, approximately 29,000 Christians have already
returned to their villages in northern Iraq. “So this is great news,” he
said, adding that 70,000 Christians IDPs remain at Erbil for now.
Displaced Christians are also currently living in other northern
population centres, such as Dohuk.
“The level of destruction is very varied in the villages on the
Nineveh Plain,” Ozores said of what ACN found during inspections of
liberated Christian areas. “We could see that almost 30,000 houses have
been damaged in one or another way.”
The inspections revealed that 8,200 Christian homes had sustained
only light damage. “So it means that these houses can be made livable
again for a relatively low amount of funding,” said Ozores, who visited
the Nineveh Plain earlier this year. And he hopes that all 100,000
Christian IDPs will eventually return to their homes.
Did ISIS booby trap Christian homes before they withdrew from the region?
“I only heard of booby traps in very few villages,” Ozores answered.
For example, he did not see any in Khatarah when he visited the
Christian town. However, some of the homes had been destroyed by
U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and ISIS explosives.
However, it was a different story in the abandoned Assyrian city of
Batnaya in northern Iraq. “I could see the booby traps myself,” Ozores
recalled.
“The bigger problem was the mining of the fields around the villages
in some areas, especially in the north between the battle lines of the
Peshmerga Kurdish Army and the ISIS [fighters],” he said. The mines
prevent returning farmers from working in their fields.
Fortunately, Ozores said, “there are now international teams clearing the fields of mines.”
A safe Christmas?
Will Christians be safe in Iraq this Christmas?
“I don’t think safety now is the biggest issue for them,” Ozores said
of the victims of ethnic cleansing. “They have been living in a state
of extreme crisis in the last three years.”
In some villages, there are hard feelings between Christians and
Muslims. “In one or two smaller villages,” Ozores said, “there are some
tensions, which is unsurprising after what has happened in the last
years.”
According to Ozores, ISIS is “not in the picture” anymore in the
villages on the Nineveh Plain. “No one is afraid of ISIS anymore.”
However, the ACN secretary general acknowledged that “the Christians
will also be taking some kind of security measures” to protect churches
and worshippers at Christmas services.
“This Christmas won’t be different from all other Christmas years,”
said Monica Ratra of the Canadian branch of Open Doors, an NGO that
serves persecuted Christians around the world. “There always exists the
risk of terror attacks, especially in Baghdad. But that could also
happen on any other time of the year.”
“Christians most definitely do not feel safe; there is too much
uncertainty,” the unnamed ICR official in Iraq asserts. “Right now the
region is quiet, men have returned as well as some families, but those
who have returned are very uncertain.”
In the northern city of Mosul, the situation “is not really safe,”
the ICR official contends. “Sunni Arabs have switched to civilian
clothes to infiltrate places without being detected, and there is much
mistrust from the Shia Iraqi army toward the Sunni.”
Ochab agrees that “safety continues to be an issue” in northern Iraq.
“The region is still fragile and there is still no sustainable solution
to address the security needs,” she said.
“Over the last months and post-referendum, yet another issue came to
light: the conflict between the Iraq and Kurdistan over the disputed
territories [including the Nineveh Plain],” Ochab explained. “The
conflict was exacerbated by the recent referendum that supported the
independence of the KRG.
“The conflict escalated to the point that a few weeks ago, Christians
had to flee from Teleskof out of fear of being injured or worse,” Ochab
said of clashes between Iraqi and Kurdish forces. “A number of
civilians got injured. This is unacceptable. The people in Nineveh Plain
have suffered enough.”
Will this be a joyous or uncertain Christmas for Iraqi Christians?
“There is more hope for Christians in Iraq now than ever before in
the last three years,” Ochab answered. However, she added that post-war
reconstruction and security issues must be addressed.
Moreover, Ochab stated that “interfaith dialogue and community
reconciliation is not being discussed yet, but is a crucial step to
ensure that Iraqi Christians feel like a part of the Iraqi community.”
In addition, the genocide researcher said that “legal steps are yet
to be taken, both to ensure that the Daesh fighters are brought to
justice, but also to ensure that the rights of Iraqi Christians — a
minority group — are adequately protected under the law and fully
enforced.”
Reconstruction and the future
Ozores said that it has been heartening to see the international
Catholic community “rallying around the cause of the plight of the
Christians in the Middle East.” And he said that the suffering of Iraqi
Christians has “woken up many Christians around the world.”
However, International Christian Response offers a more sobering view of the situation in Iraq.
According to ICR’s Karen Ellis, many of the Christians feel forsaken by the international community.
“They feel the abandonment most tangibly in terms of financial
support, but the need is so much greater than food and Christmas
celebration … they need desperately to rebuild. People are persevering,
but they can only hold on for so long,” Ellis said of Iraq’s
long-suffering Christian communities. “While there may be spiritual
growth in the region in spite of the hardship, we must pray that there
will be relief from unrest in the region, as well as true justice and
mercy.”
Although there is no census data for Iraq, it is estimated that there
were approximately 1.5 million Christians in Iraq before the 2003
U.S.-led invasion of the country unleashed many waves of anti-Christian
violence.
As bad as the situation was after the ouster of Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein, the plight of Christians worsened greatly with the rise of
ISIS in 2014.
According to ACN’s Ozores, there are only between 200,000 and 400,000
Christians left in Iraq. “Definitely, there is a very significant
reduction” from 2003, he said.
Do Christians have a future in Iraq? Or will this be one of the last Christmases they celebrate in the Muslim-majority country?
“Christians will definitely have a future in Iraq,” Ozores replied
without hesitation. “The most critical point has passed. And we have a
much reduced but significant base of Christians there.
“These people want to stay, and they have shown determination. And
they will receive a means to do so,” continued the ACN boss, noting that
the needs of the Christian population are being met in the short run.
“And then from there, no one can tell what will happen in five or 10
years.”
Ozores pointed out that many Iraqi Christians are professionals “who are important for the Iraqi economy.”
“No one knows at this point if the majority of Christians will stay
in the region. It is difficult to say and hope is still infused with
uncertainty,” the ICR official of Iraq’s ancient Christian population
said.
“The reconstruction of the many parts of the Nineveh Plains is
ongoing,” Ochab said. “For example, in Quaragosh, one of the biggest
Christian towns in the Nineveh Plain, over 1,000 houses have been
refurbished and released to their rightful owners. Another 600 are being
refurbished at the moment.
“The reconstruction is generously funded by organizations like Aid to the Church in Need or the Knights of Columbus.”
According to Monica Ratra, Christians still have a future in Iraq.
She stated that the Open Doors organization is also supporting Iraq’s
remaining Christians. For example, the NGO is doing its part by
restoring houses in the Nineveh Plain and through “income generating
projects, micro loans etc.”
Joy and uncertainty
Will this be a joyous or uncertain Christmas for Iraqi Christians?
“For those who returned back home, it is indeed a joyous Christmas,” the Open Doors Canada spokesperson said.
“On the other hand, it is a time of uncertainly for Christians, too,
especially those in the Nineveh Plain, as so much needs to be done,”
Ratra said. “Schools are slowly starting with students coming back. As
more teachers return, classes can begin full swing. Other businesses are
slowly becoming operational. Life is just starting afresh.
“There are varying levels of trauma, discouragement and hope among
every population during the holidays,” the ICR official in Iraq said.
“It will definitely be both,” Ozores said of Christians’ mixed
emotions this Christmas. “Uncertain, because the future is not 100 per
cent sure for the whole area,” he said of the tension between the
Kurdish Regional Government and the Iraqi central government.
“On the other hand, it’s a big moment of joy, because after three
years, surviving in camps, and with brutal terrorists hiding in their
homes, now they are able to return again. They are already seeing aid
coming in,” he said.
“Uncertainty, of course, is still there. We should not be naive; they are not. But they are very hopeful.”
