Tweet
The Toronto Star
February 2, 2013 Saturday
Iraq's minority Christians still searching for a home
ERBIL, Iraq
ERBIL, Iraq-"They held me captive for five days, without food or
water, constantly beating me. One day, I felt a cold blade under my
neck, and someone told me, 'If you become a Muslim, we will not kill
you.'"
Sitting in the living room of his home in Erbil, capital of the Iraqi
Kurdistan region, 63-year-old Rostom Sefarian stops talking,
struggling to hold back the tears. It was July 2006 and Sefarian, an
Armenian Christian living in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, had
been kidnapped by a group of Islamic fundamentalists - the latest
victim in a series of abductions and killings of Iraqi Christians that
continues to this day.
Sefarian was released five days later, when his family agreed to pay a
$72,000 ransom. It was the second time Sefarian had been kidnapped;
his family paid $12,000 to free him after one day in captivity the
previous January. His wife's cousin, also a Christian, was not as
lucky: three days after being kidnapped, he was found dead by his
family.
Sefarian is one of 35,000 Christian refugees from across Iraq who have
found shelter in Kurdistan, the autonomous northeastern part of the
country and its only stable region.
But what was once a safe haven for Christians is rapidly turning into
the departure point for tens of thousands who feel they don't have a
future in their own country. Hampered by a lack of economic
opportunity, linguistic and cultural barriers, and with no proper
political protection, more and more Christians are now abandoning
Kurdistan - and Iraq.
The Iraqi Christian population has shrunk to between 300,000 and
500,000, down from a high of 1.3 million people in 1991, according to
recent estimates, raising fears about the possible extinction of one
of the most ancient Christian communities in the world.
A recent report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM)
shows that the number of displaced Christian families in the four
northern governorates of Iraq (three of which are in Kurdistan) has
decreased from 1,350 to fewer than 500 in 2011. Meanwhile, the same
year, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in neighbouring Turkey
recorded an increase in Iraqi refugees, half of them (around 1,700)
Christians.
Proudly calling themselves the original inhabitants of Iraq,
Christians are now facing a challenge: numbering just a few hundred
thousand people out of more than 30 million Iraqis, they have been
politically sidelined in a country organized along sectarian and
ethnic lines, dominated by the far bigger Shia, Sunni and Kurdish
communities.
"We are the weakest link in the Iraqi mosaic," says Keldo Ramzi, the
Christian secretary of the Chaldo-Assyrian Youth Union in Erbil. "If
anyone wants to send a message to the U.S.A., he targets Christians or
bombs churches."
The worst attack happened in October 2010, when a series of suicide
bombings hit the Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, killing 58
people. According to a recent report published by the Assyrian
International News Agency, 71 churches have been attacked or bombed in
Iraq since 2004.
In Kurdistan, home to a Christian population that numbers roughly
160,000, local authorities boast that all religions are protected,
according to the spirit of the new Iraqi constitution. "We respect
Christians, and Christians respect us (Muslims)," says Kamil Haji Ali,
the Kurdistan Regional Government's minister of religious affairs.
But even if Christians can profess their faith in relative safety
here, many, like Sefarian, claim their civil and economic rights are
not respected.
After selling his four-storey house in Mosul in August 2006, Sefarian
moved with his wife and son to Erbil, where he now rents a small
apartment in Ankawa, a Christian enclave on the outskirts of the city.
But without a pension or other forms of assistance from the Iraqi
government, Sefarian is forced to rely on his son's wage. "In Mosul, I
was living like a king," he says. In Erbil he has to renew his
residence permit every year, which takes time and money. "I can't find
a job at my age. I don't speak (Kurdish) and don't have any means to
survive."
While the region has registered an impressive economic boom driven by
oil since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, many Christians claim to have
experienced only the worst part of it.
"They are building a few very expensive apartment towers that nobody
here will be able to afford," claims Naurad Youssif, a 41-year-old
Christian from Ankawa working at the local post office. "Christians
here are a poor community, and those apartments will not be for us."
Taking advantage of the Christian nature of the area, nightclubs and
restaurants selling alcohol have opened, attracting people from all
over the city and bringing problems such as brawls and prostitution.
"Many of the prostitutes here are girls coming from other parts of
Iraq, with no jobs or opportunities," says Father Tariq Eissa, parish
priest at the local Saint George Chaldean Catholic Church. "We
understand their problems, but we are not happy about the situation."
Eissa says Christian land has been seized by the government to build
business towers and housing complexes around Erbil and Ankawa. "In the
rest of Iraq they are killing us with guns, here they are doing it
with money."
Faced with a constant hemorrhaging of people, some Assyrian parties
are proposing the creation of an autonomous region in the Nineveh
plains, an area of 4,000 square kilometres east of Mosul, where
Christians could live as a self-governing majority. But the idea has
been rejected by many Christians.
"It's a project the Catholic Church has always opposed," says Afnan de
Jesus, 43, an Arab Chaldean nun who converted to Christianity. "I
think it would be very dangerous to live just among ourselves,
isolated from the others."
Yet, if the majority of local Christians seem resigned to choose
between a life in exile and an uncomfortable existence here as
second-class citizens, a young and active wing of the Christian
population is trying to fight this passive mentality. Globalized and
English-speaking, many Christian youngsters are employed by foreign
companies working in Kurdistan. They are aware of their rights and are
willing to keep on living in Iraq, no matter what.
To do so, they are ready to break the circle between religion and
politics that, in their opinions, has created so many problems. "If we
reclaim our rights under the name of Christianity we will be very
weak, because churches cannot interfere with governments," says
22-year-old Savina Rafael Daoud.
Taking advantage of the good relations between Kurds and Christians,
some youngsters are willing to engage the local society. "Christians
are not very brave here. Yes, there are problems to solve, but this
doesn't mean we should leave this country," explains Salim Kako, an
Assyrian politician. "We cannot look for the shadow all our life. We
have to go under the sun and fight for our rights."
Matteo Fagotto last wrote about Nigeria's religious clashes.
February 2, 2013 Saturday
Iraq's minority Christians still searching for a home
ERBIL, Iraq
ERBIL, Iraq-"They held me captive for five days, without food or
water, constantly beating me. One day, I felt a cold blade under my
neck, and someone told me, 'If you become a Muslim, we will not kill
you.'"
Sitting in the living room of his home in Erbil, capital of the Iraqi
Kurdistan region, 63-year-old Rostom Sefarian stops talking,
struggling to hold back the tears. It was July 2006 and Sefarian, an
Armenian Christian living in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, had
been kidnapped by a group of Islamic fundamentalists - the latest
victim in a series of abductions and killings of Iraqi Christians that
continues to this day.
Sefarian was released five days later, when his family agreed to pay a
$72,000 ransom. It was the second time Sefarian had been kidnapped;
his family paid $12,000 to free him after one day in captivity the
previous January. His wife's cousin, also a Christian, was not as
lucky: three days after being kidnapped, he was found dead by his
family.
Sefarian is one of 35,000 Christian refugees from across Iraq who have
found shelter in Kurdistan, the autonomous northeastern part of the
country and its only stable region.
But what was once a safe haven for Christians is rapidly turning into
the departure point for tens of thousands who feel they don't have a
future in their own country. Hampered by a lack of economic
opportunity, linguistic and cultural barriers, and with no proper
political protection, more and more Christians are now abandoning
Kurdistan - and Iraq.
The Iraqi Christian population has shrunk to between 300,000 and
500,000, down from a high of 1.3 million people in 1991, according to
recent estimates, raising fears about the possible extinction of one
of the most ancient Christian communities in the world.
A recent report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM)
shows that the number of displaced Christian families in the four
northern governorates of Iraq (three of which are in Kurdistan) has
decreased from 1,350 to fewer than 500 in 2011. Meanwhile, the same
year, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in neighbouring Turkey
recorded an increase in Iraqi refugees, half of them (around 1,700)
Christians.
Proudly calling themselves the original inhabitants of Iraq,
Christians are now facing a challenge: numbering just a few hundred
thousand people out of more than 30 million Iraqis, they have been
politically sidelined in a country organized along sectarian and
ethnic lines, dominated by the far bigger Shia, Sunni and Kurdish
communities.
"We are the weakest link in the Iraqi mosaic," says Keldo Ramzi, the
Christian secretary of the Chaldo-Assyrian Youth Union in Erbil. "If
anyone wants to send a message to the U.S.A., he targets Christians or
bombs churches."
The worst attack happened in October 2010, when a series of suicide
bombings hit the Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, killing 58
people. According to a recent report published by the Assyrian
International News Agency, 71 churches have been attacked or bombed in
Iraq since 2004.
In Kurdistan, home to a Christian population that numbers roughly
160,000, local authorities boast that all religions are protected,
according to the spirit of the new Iraqi constitution. "We respect
Christians, and Christians respect us (Muslims)," says Kamil Haji Ali,
the Kurdistan Regional Government's minister of religious affairs.
But even if Christians can profess their faith in relative safety
here, many, like Sefarian, claim their civil and economic rights are
not respected.
After selling his four-storey house in Mosul in August 2006, Sefarian
moved with his wife and son to Erbil, where he now rents a small
apartment in Ankawa, a Christian enclave on the outskirts of the city.
But without a pension or other forms of assistance from the Iraqi
government, Sefarian is forced to rely on his son's wage. "In Mosul, I
was living like a king," he says. In Erbil he has to renew his
residence permit every year, which takes time and money. "I can't find
a job at my age. I don't speak (Kurdish) and don't have any means to
survive."
While the region has registered an impressive economic boom driven by
oil since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, many Christians claim to have
experienced only the worst part of it.
"They are building a few very expensive apartment towers that nobody
here will be able to afford," claims Naurad Youssif, a 41-year-old
Christian from Ankawa working at the local post office. "Christians
here are a poor community, and those apartments will not be for us."
Taking advantage of the Christian nature of the area, nightclubs and
restaurants selling alcohol have opened, attracting people from all
over the city and bringing problems such as brawls and prostitution.
"Many of the prostitutes here are girls coming from other parts of
Iraq, with no jobs or opportunities," says Father Tariq Eissa, parish
priest at the local Saint George Chaldean Catholic Church. "We
understand their problems, but we are not happy about the situation."
Eissa says Christian land has been seized by the government to build
business towers and housing complexes around Erbil and Ankawa. "In the
rest of Iraq they are killing us with guns, here they are doing it
with money."
Faced with a constant hemorrhaging of people, some Assyrian parties
are proposing the creation of an autonomous region in the Nineveh
plains, an area of 4,000 square kilometres east of Mosul, where
Christians could live as a self-governing majority. But the idea has
been rejected by many Christians.
"It's a project the Catholic Church has always opposed," says Afnan de
Jesus, 43, an Arab Chaldean nun who converted to Christianity. "I
think it would be very dangerous to live just among ourselves,
isolated from the others."
Yet, if the majority of local Christians seem resigned to choose
between a life in exile and an uncomfortable existence here as
second-class citizens, a young and active wing of the Christian
population is trying to fight this passive mentality. Globalized and
English-speaking, many Christian youngsters are employed by foreign
companies working in Kurdistan. They are aware of their rights and are
willing to keep on living in Iraq, no matter what.
To do so, they are ready to break the circle between religion and
politics that, in their opinions, has created so many problems. "If we
reclaim our rights under the name of Christianity we will be very
weak, because churches cannot interfere with governments," says
22-year-old Savina Rafael Daoud.
Taking advantage of the good relations between Kurds and Christians,
some youngsters are willing to engage the local society. "Christians
are not very brave here. Yes, there are problems to solve, but this
doesn't mean we should leave this country," explains Salim Kako, an
Assyrian politician. "We cannot look for the shadow all our life. We
have to go under the sun and fight for our rights."
Matteo Fagotto last wrote about Nigeria's religious clashes.