Last year was one of the worst in recent memory for the Middle East’s beleaguered Christian minority, as hundreds of thousands were forced by the Islamic State terror group to flee their homes in what is being described as a genocide.
“It is genocide when you take over an area and strip people of their homes [and] their lives, and send them to an ambiguous future,” said Chaldean Catholic Archbish-op Bashar Warda of Erbil, the largest city in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Warda, an Iraqi-born Christian who presides over 200,000 Christians and heads up church-run relief efforts in the region, spoke on Dec. 24 from his post just miles from the frontline of the battle against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.
“[Islamic State is] destroying their churches, their homes, their manuscripts,” Warda said. “It is trying to destroy our whole past and the vast contributions we have had to this country.”
Islamic State jihadists conquered wide swaths of northern Iraq last summer, displacing more than 1.8 million Iraqis, including Christians, from their ancient homelands. According to estimates, more than 125,000 Christians from the city of Mosul and the Nineveh Plains region were displaced.
This displacement occurred in two waves, the first beginning on June 10, when Christians fled Mosul to nearby Christian villages after the Iraqi army fled and the Islamic State took over the city. Then, on July 17, the remaining Christians in Mosul were given the ultimatum to either leave, pay jizya (an Islamic tax on minorities), convert to Islam or face death, leading to a final exodus of Mosul’s Christians on July 19.
Reports indicate that after Christians were forced to flee, their homes were looted by their former neighbors and friends while Islamic State jihadists burned, destroyed and looted churches, monasteries and public buildings belonging to Christians. The jihadists also destroyed or sold off centuries-old manuscripts and other historic artifacts belonging to Christians.
Subsequently, Islamic State forces advanced on other Christian villages in the Nineveh Plains, forcing nearly 100,000 Christians to seek refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Most Iraqi Christians belong to an ethnic group known as the Assyrians, who consider themselves to be direct descendants of ancient Mesopotamian civilizations such as the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians, who were mentioned frequently in the Bible.
Christianity was first brought to modern-day Iraq by Jesus’ apostle Thomas during the first century C.E., making it one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. Christians formed the majority of the country’s population until the 14th century.
Before 2003, the Iraqi Christian population was estimated at nearly 1.5 million. Before the current violence began, that number was estimated at 250,000 to 400,000, with most Christians living in Mosul and in the villages of the Nineveh Plains, where there has been a continuous Christian presence for 2,000 years.
Since fleeing to Kurdistan, many of the displaced Christians have turned to their churches and humanitarian relief organizations for help.
One of the humanitarian groups active in the region is the Catholic charity organization Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). Founded in 1947 by Dutch Catholic priest Father Werenfried van Straaten to assist World War II refugees, the group is a Vatican-affiliated agency with offices in more than 20 countries.
The organization garnered headlines last month when Britain’s Prince Charles issued a video statement before the release of an ACN report on threats to religious freedom in the region.
“It is an indescribable tragedy that Christianity is now under such threat in the Middle East — an area where Christians have lived for 2,000 years, and across which Islam spread in 700 A.D., with people of different faiths living together peaceably for centuries,” Prince Charles said in the video.
In Iraq, the organization has focused on providing urgent humanitarian support to the numerous displaced people.
“An important effort of our emergency response now focuses on the more than 100,000 displaced Iraqi Christians currently stranded in Iraq. Aid to the Church in Need works closely with the bishops of the affected communities in providing housing, building schools and meeting the daily food, hygiene and medical needs of many thousands of vulnerable families,” said Edward Clancy, the organization’s U.S. director of outreach and evangelization.
Pope Francis has frequently spoken out in solidarity with Mideast Christians and their plight. During a recent visit to Turkey, he issued a joint declaration with his Orthodox Christian counterpart, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, saying, “We cannot resign ourselves to a Middle East without Christians.”
The modern persecution and expulsion of Iraq’s Christian and other minorities draws many parallels to the waves of attacks on, and eventual expulsion of, Iraq’s Jewish community during the mid-20th century. Nearly 135,000 Jews were forced to leave from 1948 onwards.
“Many families do remember what happened to the Jews back in 1948,” said Warda of the Chaldean Catholic Church. “My parents remembered it well and were in the same neighborhood. When the Jews left, they warned the Christians, ‘Sunday comes after Saturday.’ ”
Warda said that members of the older generation frequently describe how they are witnessing history repeat itself.
“That generation still recalls the events and say what is happening now is exactly what happened to the Jewish community,” he said. “They were stripped of everything, just like we are being erased today.