Compass Feature: Iraqi Christians Fleeing to Jordan, Syria

FEATURE NEWS from COMPASS DIRECT
Global News from the Frontlines

Summary:
AMMAN, Jordan, and DAMASCUS, Syria, October 6 (Compass) — Written threats,
kidnappings, bombings and murder by Muslim extremists are driving thousands
of Iraq’s minority Christian population out of their ancestral homeland,
fleeing for safety to neighboring Jordan and Syria. An Orthodox bishop in
Syria warns that if the emigration continues at the present rate, there
could be no more Christians in Iraq in 10 years’ time. But one Iraqi church
leader said he believes the Christian community would go underground first,
to avoid such a possibility. Iraqi Christian refugees interviewed in Amman
and Damascus admit that recent church bombings in August and September
helped to spark the recent exodus. But individual attacks carried out
against them by instigators of the local rising tide of Islamic
fundamentalism were also a factor. They said they are specifically targeted
because of their Christian faith and are viewed as collaborators with the
occupying U.S. forces because “they share the same religion.” Militants also
try to kidnap them because they believe Christians have Western connections
and therefore access to more money than other Iraqis. Although Iraq’s
2,000-year-old Christian community had expressed hope that a change in
government would usher in a new era of full religious freedom, they now
believe that the very existence of the church in Iraq is under threat.

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Iraqi Christians Fleeing to Jordan, Syria
Christian leaders say Iraqi church’s future threatened.
by Dale Gavlak

AMMAN, Jordan, and DAMASCUS, Syria, October 6 (Compass) — A quiet but
steady hemorrhaging of Iraq’s ancient Christian presence is underway and
little is being done to stem the flow.

Written threats, kidnappings, bombings and murder by Muslim extremists are
driving thousands of Iraq’s minority Christian population out of their
ancestral homeland, fleeing for safety to neighboring Jordan and Syria.

“The Christians are experiencing an absence of leadership,” explained Hala
Hikmat, a recent arrival from Baghdad who has joined thousands of her
countrymen in Syria. “We have no leaders who are communicating our urgent
needs to the authorities, so consequently each person has to take care of
themselves.” Their urgent needs, as expressed by Hikmat, are for protection
and for a stand to be taken on Christians’ behalf.

A string of church bombings in August and September sent anywhere from
30,000 to 40,000 Christians fleeing the country, according to estimates by
Iraqi government and church officials. And they admit that hundreds more
families out of Iraq’s 750,000 Christians are leaving each week.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) disputes these
figures, saying they are too high. But UNHCR offices in Amman and Damascus
admit that it is hard to know exactly how many Iraqi Christians are
currently in Jordan and Syria.

Of the 4,000 Iraqi families officially registered as refugees with the
agency in Damascus, more than half are Christians. It is believed that there
are larger numbers of Iraqis in Syria because it is cheaper to live there
than in Jordan. Iraqi Christians also said they have stronger cultural and
spiritual ties to Syria. Syrian authorities estimate there are about 300,000
Iraqis in the country.

“The Syrian government has been extremely generous to the Iraqis,” explained
Abdelhamed El Ouali, UNHCR head in Damascus. “It has kept the borders open
without political considerations. And it believes it has a sacred duty to
allow Iraqis who need safety to stay as long as necessary. But I am afraid
if the numbers continue to rise dramatically without any international
assistance, the situation here could change,” he warned.

A member of Iraq’s Chaldean Catholic community, who refused to give her name
for fear of reprisals against family members, said she lived near one of the
churches that was bombed in Baghdad last August. “I received a letter
threatening me. It also claimed that the church where I served would explode
while I was inside,” she said, “unless I paid $300,000.

“We are poor people and do not have such money, so I took my husband and my
son and we fled to Syria,” she said.

The synchronized bombings of five churches on August 1 and a car bombing at
a Baghdad church on September 10 sent shock waves through the Christian
community. Iraqi officials blamed al-Qaeda ally and Jordanian
terror-mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for the attacks.

A university student visiting Syria from Baghdad said she wanted to attend
mass at the Chaldean Church of St. Terese of Little Jesus while she was in
Damascus because there was little opportunity now to worship back home
without fear. “We can’t attend services because all of the churches are
threatened with explosions,” she said. “No one knows what will happen now.”

Most of Iraq’s Christians are Chaldean eastern-rite Catholics who are
autonomous from Rome but who recognize the pope’s authority. Other Christian
denominations in Iraq include Roman and Syrian Catholics; Assyrians; Greek,
Syrian and Armenian Orthodox; Presbyterians; Anglicans; and evangelicals.

One Baptist woman from Baghdad who also refused to give her name said she
had taken to wearing a head-covering when going outside, simply to protect
herself and her children. “It is very risky now to go out on the streets in
Iraq without a scarf on your head,” she said. “When I dared to do it, people
shouted at me from a passing car that I had to respect Islamic traditions in
a country where Muslims are the majority.”

But the woman said that was not the main reason why her family fled Iraq.
Her husband is a university professor. She explained that because he is a
Christian and an educated professional, he was a double target for
militants. “They have been killing university professors. They want to rid
Iraq of intellectuals.

“We have received threats and letters saying they have not incurred enough
casualties. We were frightened and decided to leave.”

Although Iraq’s top Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani,
has condemned the assaults on churches as “hideous crimes,” Muslim leaders
have largely refused to criticize the killings of Christians who work for
the U.S. military or sell liquor. Beauty salons and shops selling music
cassettes run by Christians have also been targeted because they are deemed
offensive to strict Islamic practices.

Christian businessman Sawa Eissa said it was more than threats that forced
him and his family out of Baghdad and over the border to Jordan. He said
militants linked to renegade Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr recently
kidnapped and tortured him until his family paid ransom money.

“A gang came to my shop with machine guns and forced me into a car where I
remained for nine days,” he said. “They wanted $200,000 from me.

“They repeatedly hit me and poured boiling water all over my body. I was
held hostage until my family paid them $50,000 to finally get me released.”

Eissa, who is in his mid 50s, now walks with a cane and burn marks are
visible on his body. He said he and his family hope to find permanent refuge
in Australia because he cannot find legal work in Jordan.

An Iraqi church leader, Noel Farman, said other Iraqis have also become
victims of the escalating violence and militant clashes with U.S. and Iraqi
forces. But because Christians are much fewer in number, he argued, attacks
against them have a disproportionate impact.

“Christians in Iraq are becoming more and more of a minority, and they are
being sacrificed for the sake of the war against terrorism taking place on
the battlefield of Iraq,” he said. “We feel depressed, because we are
considered like a ‘playing card’ that outside forces can manipulate for
their own aims.

“We Iraqis of various religious and ethnic backgrounds are used to living
together and enjoying good relationships, but now these relations are being
exploited,” Farman explained, shaking his head.

The number of Christians in Iraq is expected to drop as long as hostilities
continue in the country, in line with their already steady decline over the
past 15 years. Before the 2003 war, Christians represented one million out
of Iraq’s 25 million inhabitants, while a 1987 census recorded their number
as 1.4 million.

A Syrian Orthodox bishop, preferring not to be named, said he feared Iraq’s
Christian population could totally disappear within a decade if emigration
continues at its current rate. But Farman was more hopeful. He said the
Iraqi church was resilient and would move underground if the circumstances
worsened.

Yet even in these troubled times, there are stalwart Christians who are
choosing not to leave their homeland. A small group of Pentecostal
Christians who visited Amman recently from Baghdad reported that their
church is growing, despite some outward pressure. In another instance, a
family returned to the Iraqi capital in order to start a Bible study with
women from one of the Catholic churches targeted in the August blasts.

Without a strong Christian presence in Iraq, or candidates in the upcoming
elections who insist on a separation between religion and the state, the
country could move precariously toward becoming a theocracy dominated by
Islamic parties and clerics. Iraqi Christians said they do not want to leave
their country, but without the needed recognition and support of their
rights, staying there is becoming a more difficult proposition.

END

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