Christians nearly ‘extinct’ in Iraq
Faith groups try to restore historic Christian towns ravaged by ISIS
Stephen Rasche says the next six weeks will be critical for saving some of the world’s oldest Christian communities from extinction.
Rasche coordinates a task force trying to return tens of thousands of Christian families to the ancient Iraqi towns from which they were driven by the Islamic State three years ago.
U.S. and Iraqi forces drove ISIS out of the region last fall, but the string of historic Christian towns in the northern tip of Iraq that have been liberated stand in varying states of destruction. The towns face a “critical need over these next 60 days at the latest — really at the end of September — to get in enough work and enough of a core group of the population back so that it can demonstrate a viability for the recovery of the town,” says Rasche, who works for the Catholic Archdiocese of Irbil and is chief coordinator of a newly formed Nineveh Reconstruction Committee, a coalition of major Christian denominations in the region.
Rasche and others involved in the reconstruction say time is of the essence for rescuing a community that was among the first converted to Christianity by the Apostles in the decades after the death of Jesus Christ.
“Christianity in Iraq is on the brink of extinction. They have gone from 1.5 million people to somewhere south of 200,000,” says Andrew Walther, the U.Sbased vice president of communication for the Knights of Columbus, which recently announced a $2 million infusion to rebuild the town of Karemles. “With the new school year coming and these towns having now been liberated (from ISIS), people’s attitude is ‘Well, we are either going to return home now, or we are going to leave forever.’ ”
The effort is based on rebuilding one town at a time, providing design assistance, building supplies and other support to help residents repair their war-damaged homes enough to return from their exile in Kurdistan. It is remarkably cheap. For many residents, a few thousand dollars will be enough to restore their home to livability and allow them to return — though government support will be needed for infrastructure such as water and power systems and to guarantee long-term security.
The recipients of the aid are overwhelmingly but not exclusively Christian. The aid project serves a smattering of other persecuted religious minorities, including Yezidis and Shabak Muslims.
The first $2 million tranche of funding for the project came from the Hungarian government this spring. That down payment returned about 1,000 Christian families to the town of Teleskov, the northernmost boundary of the ISIS offensive that chased more than 100,000 Christians out
“What is the future for Christians who would return to the historic Christian communities in Ninevah? We don’t know. But if they want to return to these communities, we are going to help them.” Aaron Ashoff, Samaritan’s Purse
of the Nineveh Plain in August 2014 .
The evangelical relief group Samaritan’s Purse focuses its effort in the town of Qaraqosh, where it hopes to help rebuild about 600 homes. “The life of Christians who fled who are now in Irbil, who left their homes, I would say life is not great for them,” says Aaron Ashoff, the group’s regional director for Europe and the Middle East. “What is the future for Christians who would return to the historic Christian communities in Ninevah? We don’t know. But if they want to return to these communities, we are going to help them.”
The Iraqi school year begins in October, and Rasche says families living as refugees in Kurdistan are unlikely to return to the area once the school year has begun, uprooting their children again.
After three years away, if the families do not return this year, they may give up hope of ever returning to Iraq, says Joop Koopman, spokesman for Aid to the Church in Need, a worldwide Catholic organization that is another major donor to the reconstruction effort. “If a significant number of Christians don’t return soon, it may dash the hopes of any renaissance for the Nineveh plains,” Koopman says.
Most of the Christian refugees have been living in Irbil, where the Catholic diocese has provided millions of dollars of rental and food assistance.
The church’s charity has been a lifeline for the Christian community, but it’s also been a barrier to government support.
“It essentially ended up that the Christians, having been supported in some fashion by global Christians, were judged to be in a category where they didn’t need any more help from the U.N. and the State Department,” Rasche says. “We sat in meetings where
people told us if we laid off on the amount of aid that we were providing so that their standards dropped … then the U.N. would be happy to step in.”
Walther and others who have advocated on behalf of the Iraqi Christians say the Obama administration was reluctant to address their plight.
“The archdiocese of Irbil has received no direct government funding from the U.S. or U.N.,” Walther says. He blames the Obama administration’s “mind-set” that “people get aid on basis of immediate need only, and the rationale is that you don’t want to discriminate against any individual.” Though that principle makes sense, Walther says, it does not take into account the prospect that an entire community might be extinguished.
Julian Dobbs, an Anglican bishop who heads a relief group called Barnabus Aid, says he has seen a dramatic shift in tone from the Trump administration, indicating that persecuted Christians will see much more support.
“The Trump administration has repeatedly referred to Iraqi Christians as victims of genocide who are entitled to special protection,” Dobbs says.