Thousands of Christians have returned to their homes in the historic Christian heartland of Iraq and are rebuilding their lives, including once again living out the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, after fleeing a decade ago from the ISIS takeover.
The Islamist extremist group captured Mosul and the villages to the north and east of the city in June of 2014, prompting a mass exodus of Christians and Yazidis. About 9,000 Christian families have managed to return to their homes on the Nineveh Plains surrounding the city in Iraq’s historic Christian heartland.
Speaking to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region in Iraq, explained that the occupation of Mosul left Christians on the Nineveh Plains vulnerable, and on 6 August 2014, prompted by further ISIS aggression, the entire Christian population fled to Iraqi Kurdistan.
The archbishop told ACN that 13,200 Christian families had fled to his archdiocese in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region. He said he was grateful to the international community for providing emergency aid and helping to rebuild the destroyed villages, making it possible for thousands of Christian families to return to their native land, with “everyone working towards one goal”.
“All those sad and terrifying memories are still there, but at least [the Christian families] can start building and see that the future is in [their] hands,” he told the Catholic aid agency.
The archbishop said the “churches are filled again” and “there are so many children” receiving catechesis and preparing for their First Holy Communion.
Warda went on to highlight the special role of the Catholic University of Erbil – Iraq’s only Catholic university, established in 2015 and supported by ACN – in nurturing Christian unity in the region.
He said that his community still needs all the help it can get to “keep the flame of the Christian faith shining” in Iraq’s historic Christian heartland, adding “I ask my people just to be patient and persevere”.
Warda explained to ACN that, despite the end of the ISIS occupation, many Christians have either left or are planning to leave the country because of the ongoing economic hardship, and that young people “ask for jobs, not just to receive donations”. He added that, even though persecution is no longer the main concern for Christians in the area, “the pressure of being a minority is real”.
He urged the international community not to forget Iraq’s suffering Christians “in the midst of so many crises around the world”. The archbishop said that he “would love to see” the UK government and other world leaders remind Iraqi politicians that they “care about the minorities – Christians, Yazidis, and the rest”.
The Chaldean Bishop of Alqosh, Paul Thabit Mekko, told the Vatican’s Fides news agency that many Christians still feel that the period of ISIS rule in Mosul remains a huge trauma that has left a deep scar in the city, and so remain unsure about returning.
“We do not know if the situation will change,” Mekko said. “Today many live in Ankawa, the district of Erbil inhabited by Christians. They feel safer there; there are more opportunities to work. They do not think of returning to a city that has changed a lot since [that] time.”
He added: “They would not recognise it.”
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