Iraqi Christians fear returning over threats by Shia militias
bartella — 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 Shia martyrs alongside a photo of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini. Posters of Iranian-backed militiamen killed in fighting with the Daesh group hang on streets all around the city, along with banners to revered historical Shia 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 S, who are largely Shia. When the Daesh 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 Daesh, 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 Shia 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 Daesh group. Now that Daesh 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. —