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Iraqi Christians flee ISIS-controlled territory

Jun 17, 2014 2:46 pm By Robert Spencer

Iraqi Christians attend a Christmas Eve mass at St. Joseph Chaldean Church in BaghdadWhy are they fleeing? The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria wants to create an Islamic state ruled by Sharia, and as every mainstream media reporter in the United States knows, Sharia is entirely benign, humane, and compatible with principles of human rights. So why are they fleeing? Have Iraqi Christians been reading the writings of greasy Islamophobes? Or could it be that they see what Sharia is with their own eyes, and that the mainstream narrative is wrong?

“Iraqi Christians flee homes amid militant push,” Associated Press, June 16, 2014:

Over the past decade, Iraqi Christians have fled repeatedly to this ancient mountainside village, seeking refuge from violence, then returning home when the danger eased. Now they are doing it again as Islamic militants rampage across northern Iraq, but this time few say they ever want to go back to their homes.

The flight is a new blow to Iraq’s dwindling Christian community, which is almost as old as the religion itself but which has already been devastated since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. During the past 11 years, at least half of the country’s Christian population has fled the country, according to some estimates, to escape frequent attacks by Sunni Muslim militants targeting them and their churches.

Now many of those who held out and remained may be giving up completely after fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant swept over the city of Mosul and a broad swath of the country the past week.

“I’m not going back,” said Lina, who fled Mosul with her family as the militants swept in and came to Alqosh, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) to the north.

“Each day we went to bed in fear,” the 57-year-old woman said, sitting in a house for displaced people. “In our own houses we knew no rest.” Like other Christians who fled here, she spoke on condition she be identified only by her first name for fear for her safety.

In leaving, the Christians are emptying out communities that date back to the first centuries of the religion, including Chaldean, Assyrian and Armenian churches. The past week, some 160 Christian families – mostly from Mosul – have fled to Alqosh, mayor Sabri Boutani told The Associated Press, consulting first on the number with his wife by speaking in Chaldean, the ancient language spoken by many residents.

Alqosh, dating back at least to the 1st century BC, is a jumble of pastel-painted homes nestled at the base of a high craggy hill among rolling plains of wheat fields. The village’s population of 6,000 is about half Christian and half ethnic Kurds. Located just outside the autonomous Kurdish zone of northern Iraq, Kurdish fighters known as peshmerga have moved into the town to protect it.

Many Christians are deciding that the comparatively liberal and prosperous Kurdish regions are their safest bet.

“Every Christian prefers to stay in Kurdistan,” said Abu Zeid, an engineer. He too said he wouldn’t be going back to Mosul.

“It’s a shame because Mosul is the most important city in Iraq for Christians,” he added. Mosul is said to be the site of the burial of Jonah, the prophet who tradition says was swallowed by a whale.

Iraq was estimated to have more than 1 million Christians before the 2003 invasion and topping of Saddam Hussein. Now church officials estimate only 450,000 remain within Iraq borders. Militants have targeted Christians in repeated waves in Baghdad and the north. The Chaldean Catholic cardinal was kidnapped in 2008 by extremists and killed. Churches around the country have been bombed repeatedly.

The exodus from Mosul – a Sunni-majority city that during the American presence in Iraq was an al-Qaida stronghold – has been even more dramatic. From a pre-2003 population of around 130,000 Christians, there were only about 10,000 left before the Islamic State fighters overran the city a week ago.

Abu Zeid estimated that now only 2,000 Christians remain in the city.

“They see no future there,” said George Demacopoulos, the director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at the Jesuit-run Fordham University in New York.

“There is no short-term solution,” he said in a phone interview. “I think the only prescription for a long-term solution is a kind of political stabilization of the region that is enabled without military force.”

Christians who have not left Iraq completely often flee their homes to other parts of Iraq when the danger is highest in hopes of returning later.

Boutani, the mayor, said this was the sixth time in 11 years that Christians from other areas have flocked to Alqosh for refuge. He himself fled here from Baghdad in 2009 after a church bombing in the capital.

This is the third time that Adnan, a 60-year-old Mosul shoe shop owner, has sought shelter in Alqosh. He came in 2008 after a priest in Mosul was killed, then again in 2010 after rumors spread of an imminent attack on Christians. Each time, he and his family returned after Iraqi security officials guaranteed Christians’ safety.

“They said, we will protect you,” he recalled. “But now – where’s the government?”

The Vatican for years has voiced concern about the flight of Christians from the Middle East, driven out by war, poverty and discrimination.

During his recent trip to Jordan, Pope Francis met with Iraqi and Syrian Christians and denounced the wars, weapons and conflicts that have forced them from their homes.

“All of us want peace!” Francis told a gathering of refugees near the River Jordan. “I ask myself: who is selling arms to these people to make war?”

In Alqosh, the newcomers and the residents united in prayer at Sunday Mass in the Chaldean Church of the Virgin Mary of the Harvest, held by Friar Gabriel Tooma.

On the church floor was spread a mosaic made of beans, lentils, wheat and other produce from the area, assembled to commemorate the upcoming harvest. Before the service, volunteers hurried to finish the images of Jesus and Mary, and were filling out the details of Pope Francis’ face, sketched out with white beans.

“People are afraid of what’s coming next,” Tooma said. “I fear there will be a day when people will say: ‘There were once Christians in Iraq.’”

As he walked with his wife and daughter in the 7th century St Hormoz monastery, built into the hill overlooking Alqosh, Abu Zeid said he went back to Mosul on Friday to see if his house was still standing.

Some of the militants in control of the city tried to show that Christians were welcome.

Gunmen stopped him and asked if he was a Christian, Abu Zeid said. When he nodded back, a gunman told him: “Welcome to your home.”

The Chaldean church in Mosul was looted, he said, and he saw gunmen drag the accused thieves to the church and order them to return stolen property.

He and other displaced Christians highly doubt the shows of goodwill. Still, some said they have no choice but to eventually return.

“I’m 60 years old,” said Adnan, the shoe salesman. “It would be hard to start over again.”

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Filed Under: Iraq, Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh), Muslim persecution of Christians Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. Jaladhi says

    Jun 17, 2014 at 3:06 pm

    Where arethe world leaders and the so called peaceful Muslims to denounce this Christian persecution by Muslims??? The silence is deafening!! This is real Islam folks – this is what Muslims have done for last 1400 years and this what they are doing now. Lets say if Muslims were persecuted in all non-Muslim countries where they have allowed to come, what will you hear from the same hypocrite leaders of the West and Muslim countries – the noise will be really deafening then!!

    Why don’t these so called peaceful hypocrite Muslim do something about their religion?? #When will non-Muslims learn the true face of islam and Muslims??

    • umbra says

      Jun 18, 2014 at 8:34 am

      peaceful muslims last seen with pixies and unicorns … in movies and fairytale stories.

  2. mariam rove says

    Jun 17, 2014 at 3:56 pm

    The free societies should carve out a place to house all Christians living in muslim countries. Other wise the become….a thing of the past like dinosaurs… m

    • Islamisdeath says

      Jun 17, 2014 at 5:08 pm

      The western leftist controlled governments hate Christians worse than the muslims do. My God Christians are against same sex marriage and abortion!! Keep them out but for goodness sake import many, many more left voting muslims.

      They are too braindead to see what they are doing and even if they did have an inkling would not care because all that will happen after they have died and they couldn’t give a rats butt what they do to ensuing generations. They just want what they want and thats all that they want!

  3. el-cid says

    Jun 17, 2014 at 4:17 pm

    this the real story of the Crusade. It never stopped. The Muslims are the perpetrators not the victims. The Jews are already gone except for Israel. Now they are finishing the job by getting rid of the Christians.

  4. john spielman says

    Jun 17, 2014 at 4:34 pm

    please make your way to a Canadian embassy and ask for asylum, we welcome you here!

    • Jaladhi says

      Jun 17, 2014 at 4:47 pm

      And Canada is not full of Muslims???

  5. John C. Barile says

    Jun 17, 2014 at 6:25 pm

    “All of us want peace!” Francis told a gathering of refugees near the River Jordan. “I ask myself: who is selling arms to these people to make war?”

    Yes, Holy Father, all of us want peace, including “these people” who offer us a choice between the peace of submission or the peace of the dead. Who is selling arms, you ask? Better question: who is buying them? Open your eyes, Papa, and see that the adherents of the Religion of Peace are buying them with money they raise for zakat–alms for arms.

    • gravenimage says

      Jun 18, 2014 at 7:25 pm

      John C. Barile wrote:

      Who is selling arms, you ask? Better question: who is buying them?
      …………………………..

      Exactly right, John. After all, if someone offered you a deal on weaponry, would you go out and wage violent Jihad?

      Of course not.

      And in some cases arms dealers are barely in the picture—in the case of ISIS, much of their arms were seized from the Syrian and Iraqi armies.

      And you are quite right about Zakat—usually mistranslated as “alms” or “charity”—which is so often used to fund violent JIhad.

  6. Joseph says

    Jun 17, 2014 at 6:27 pm

    Pope Francis has officially declared: “Authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence” [Evangelii Gaudium #253].

    This demonstrates his utter and profound ignorance of the true nature of Islam. And all free people should take note that this pope is NOT an ally in our [defensive] war against Islamic jihad. In fact, each day brings us new evidence that he is an ally of Islam and an enemy of both Israel and the West.

    Useful idiot. Emphasis on the latter.

    What a sad and embarrassing time to be a Catholic.

    • Jerry says

      Jun 18, 2014 at 5:21 pm

      The useless idiot did not properly read the Qur’an or the Hadith

  7. bicky says

    Jun 17, 2014 at 6:43 pm

    Guys just go through this link.
    Christians are raped and murdered throughout the middle east, Imam obama is not bothered, religion of peace activists make trouble in sri lanka, they are paid back in their own coin, sultan obama is ” deeply concerned “.

    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/Buddhists-vs-Muslims-Sri-Lanka-deploys-army-as-riots-spread-in-country/articleshow/36720473.cms

  8. Mirren10 says

    Jun 18, 2014 at 6:37 pm

    So, you silly little anti-Semite, if the msm is “a 100% Jewish monopoly”, why is it that the majority of the msm is anti -Israel, and *lurves* the ‘pooor Palestinians’??

    Are they a) just shooting themselved in the foot; b) just damn stupid, or c) Have an even more monstrous plan ?

    Bet I can guess which one *you’ll pick …

  9. gravenimage says

    Jun 18, 2014 at 7:16 pm

    More crap from the sickening antisemite “Nordicelt”.

    Notice that this creep *never* has anything to say about Muslim savagery—instead he is just peddling his bs about how it is all the fault of the ‘perfidious Jooooooos’. *Ugh*.

    • John C. Barile says

      Jun 18, 2014 at 10:34 pm

      What have we done to deserve a proselytizing missionary from Stormfront ?

      • dumbledoresarmy says

        Jun 18, 2014 at 11:35 pm

        Perhaps it’s time to request that he be seized by the seat of his trousers and the scruff of his neck and escorted from the premises by the bouncers, and deposited outside, in the gutter.

  10. Steve A. says

    Jun 22, 2014 at 7:20 pm

    Anyone read the NY Times? Not mainstream enough?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/world/asia/afghanistan-a-christian-convert-on-the-run.html?hp

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