Christians of Iraq return to wreckage
Rebirth of centuries-old communities unlikely after horrors of Daesh occupation
QARAQOSH, IRAQ— Despite their hometowns having been recently freed from Daesh, the Christians of Iraq are still in a state of mourning as Christmas approaches.
Old towns on the edge of Mosul, where Christians lived for many centuries, have become wastelands. Most churches are still standing, but badly damaged and ransacked. When a liberating soldier hoists a cross atop a church, or a priest returns to take stock of the losses and light a candle, the scenes feel more sad than hopeful — especially when weighed against the widely felt sentiments of displaced Christians that they will never go home.
Some of the early gains in the campaign to retake Mosul from Daesh, which began in mid-October and is grinding into its third month, were the liberations of historically Christian villages and towns, including Qaraqosh, Iraq’s largest Christian city, and Bartella.
There were early feelings of jubilation. Some families returned to celebrate alongside some of the Christian militia fighters who participated in the battles. But just as quickly, it became apparent that rebirth for the Christian community in Iraq is unlikely, given how few seem to want to return.
“There is no guarantee that we can go back and be safe,” said Haseeb Saleem, 65, a Christian from the Mosul area who left more than two years ago and now lives in the Kurdish city of Irbil, the regional capital.
Saleem echoed a deeply felt belief among Iraq’s minorities that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, by removing a dictatorship that at least promised them security, marked the beginning of the community’s demise in their own country.
“Before 2003, believe me, my neighbour didn’t know what I was,” he said. “No one could ask, are you Sunni? Or Shia? Or Muslim? Or Christian?”
In 2003, an estimated 1.5 million Christians lived in Iraq. By the time Daesh, also known as ISIS and ISIL, swept through northern Iraq in 2014, that figure had fallen to roughly 400,000.
Since then, many thousands more have left the country, or fled from Mosul to the relative safety of the Kurdish region.
When Daesh seized Mosul and out- lying areas in the summer of 2014, the militants stole the money, jewelry and property of Christians and gave them a choice if they wished to stay: either convert to Islam or pay a special tax. Nearly every Christian left home and joined Iraq’s growing community of the displaced.
But there were two Christians, two old women in their late 70s, who stayed. Cut off from their families during the chaos of two summers ago, Badrea Gigues and Zarifa Bakoos found themselves left behind in Qaraqosh. Then, each had ailing husbands.
But soon after their hometown fell to Daesh, their husbands died. The two widows, old friends, found themselves living together, and facing together the brutality of new rulers who stole their money and demanded they renounce their faith and convert to Islam.
“Sometimes we prayed and sometimes we cried,” said Gigues, who is blind and largely deaf.
The women said that Daesh fighters forced them to spit on a cross and to stomp on a picture of the Virgin Mary.
“Sorry, Mary, that I did that,” Bakoos recalled thinking. “Please forgive me.”
Even for former residents of Qaraqosh who might wish to return and stay, it is not yet safe. Weeks after the battle to retake the city, Christian militia fighters who secured the town are still on alert for possible counterattacks.
The Christians of Iraq may have lost much to Daesh — houses, gold, money. But some say the experience has strengthened their faith.
“They can destroy our houses, our things, but not our souls,” said Huda Khudhur, a nun from Qaraqosh.