Christians fear returning to Mosul one year after IS defeat

Still haunted by memories of devastation and violence in Mosul under Islamic State militants, Christian families living in a refugee camp in Erbil defy an order by the church running the camp to leave.

With hope to emigrate, nearly 100 people are endlessly waiting in cramped cabins, because their homes in Mosul or in Nineveh plains were almost completely destroyed in the fighting to dislodge militants of the hardline group.

Christians at the camp complained that Ainkawa Church stopped providing the camp with power and also reduced the supply of water.

The administration of the camp could not be reached for comment . However, all Christian families of the camp refused to evacuate.

“I myself will not go back to Mosul because I have experienced a lot of painful events. I saw painful things happening before my eyes. I saw killing, blood and kidnappings and many other things,” said displaced Christian man Ra'id Ablahad Korgis.

Like many Christians, Korgis' house was torched and ransacked after his hometown fell to the Islamic State in 2014.

It was from a Mosul mosque that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” in 2014, spanning northern Iraq and eastern Syria. The Iraqi forces recaptured the city in 2017, after eight months of grinding urban warfare, signaling the collapse of the group's self-proclaimed caliphate.

Islamic State has targeted the adherents and religious sites of minority communities in both Iraq and Syria. When it seized control of Mosul two years ago, it issued an ultimatum to Christians: pay a tax, convert to Islam, or die by the sword.

 With no income, an ill husband and two sons to feed, 57-year-old Rajina Alyas Sha'ya said that she cannot go back to Mosul as she fears for the safety of her sons.

Crammed in a two-room cabin, Alyas said she and her family subsist on lentils soup.

But tired of living with her seven-member family in a rented house in nearby Erbil, Hanan Bahnam, 45-years old Christian woman, returned to her town of Qaraqosh where she opened a small shop to earn a living and rebuild her house which was torched and damaged by the militants of the Islamic State.

“No one can guarantee us safety. We have decided to return to Qaraqosh because we do not have other place to go to. How long can we live as displaced? We do not have no other option,” said Bahnam who lives in a rented house in Qaraqosh.

Qaraqosh has been ransacked by the militants, who stole everything of value - televisions, washing machines, fridges - to distribute to their followers or sell for profit.

More than a year after the recapture of the city from the Islamic State, most of the Christians houses in Qaraqosh are still damaged and burnt and Islamic state graffiti still marking the walls of many houses.

Some houses have been torched, either to create a smokescreen against coalition aircraft bombing Islamic State in support of Iraqi forces, or apparently out of spite.

Christianity in northern Iraq dates back to the first century AD. The number of Christians fell sharply during the violence which followed the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and the Islamic State takeover of Mosul two years ago purged the city of Christians for the first time in two millennia.

Most abandoned their homes and fled toward the autonomous Kurdish region, abandoning one of Christianity's earliest centers.

 

 

REUTERS