Iraq: The Christian exodus
The militia of the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL, known in Arabian as the Daech), a Sunnite jihadist formation also striking in Egypt, took Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, on June 9. Archbishop Emil Shimoun Nona, Chaldean archbishop of Mosul, announced early in July that the Iraqi air force had recently “begun to bombard Mosul”; these air raids steadily emptied the city of its civil population, while the militia took over district after district. The whole zone of the Plane of Nineveh, as far as several kilometers from Mosul, was then under the control of the Kurd militia. The jihadist militia proclaimed the Islamic caliphate, and ordered public officials to suspend the food and gas supply for Shiites, Kurds and Christians still in this second largest city of Iraq.
On July 18, Fr. Anis Hanna, an Iraqi Dominican presently living in Lyon, shared with Help to the Church in Distress (AED) the situation in his country with which he has remained in constant contact. On July 15, the Islamic State decreed that the homes of Christians henceforth belonged to the Islamic State of Iraq; they were marked on the outside “Property of the Islamic State.” Two days later, the head of the Islamic State summoned the directors of the Christian community of Mosul in order to define the status of Christian. As no director of the Christian community was present at this summons, a decree was published to inform them of their status under the regime of the caliphate in the province of Nineveh: 1- become Muslim 2 – accept the status of dimmi and pay the special tax, the djizya 3 – if they refuse, they are to be exterminated by the sword.
This decree was distributed to all the 65 Christian families still in Mosul, who then left the city in the direction of Iraqi Kurdistan, which is considered to be a safer place.
Bishop Louis Raphaël I Sako, patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, in an interview on June 28, 2014 , with the AED, denounced the probable disappearance of Christian life in the region, and a division in the country: “Maybe there will be a symbolic unity, and the name of Iraq will remain. But in reality, there will be three independent zones, each with its own budget and its own weapons.” (…) “In any case, the Kurds already enjoy their autonomy, the Shiites as well. Now it is the Sunnites’ turn. Iraq will thus be divided.”
According to Bishop Sako, the ISIL constitutes a danger that threatens the world far beyond Iraq. He pointed out that the intention of the Sunnite terrorist organization is to create an Islamic State whose power will be based on petroleum, and from that point on, its ambition will be to Islamize the world. The patriarch does not exclude the possible of a political solution to the present crisis. “This possibility will exist as soon as the West and our neighbors, Iran, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, wish it.”
After the departure of the last Christians from Mosul, Bishop Saad Syroub, auxiliary Chaldean bishop of Bagdad, called upon the international community to put pressure on the Iraqi government to find concrete solutions. “With a greater internal stability, there would be no more room for these groups of fanatics who pretend to govern our country. And we must help these poor people who no longer have a home and have had everything taken from them. It is a true tragedy.”
Reminder: In 2003, before the American involvement, there were 35,000 Christians in Mosul.
(sources: apic/fides/aed – DICI no.299 dated August 1, 2014)
You can also read :
Iraq: Islamic Militias Take Over the North of the Country
Iraq: Until the “grace of martyrdom”
Iraq: The perpetrators of the attack on the cathedral in Baghdad sentenced to death
Iraq: A survivor of the attack in Baghdad tells her story
Iraq: Despite the Elections, the Situation Becomes Worse for the Christians
Iraq : Silence regarding the murder of Christians
