Déjà vu.. Turkish fire creeps into Iraqi Christians

Shafaq News/ Christian clerics in Iraq warn that Turkish military attacks in Kurdistan and Nineveh are displacing Christians and exacerbating a precarious security situation, according to the Christian organization Crux.

"In the past year, Christian villagers have already been forced to flee their homes because of the Turkish army's attack under the pretext that its forces are attacking the Kurdistan’s Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters", father Emanuel Youkhana said.

Father Emanuel explained, "But now during the past two or three weeks, the Turkish army has expanded its attacks, targeting several Christian villages near the Turkish border in the northern governorate of Duhok. The shelling has damaged properties, houses, and set fields ablaze, while Christians fled their homes again”.

According to Crux, Father Emmanuel did not specify the numbers of those affected by the Turkish attacks; but noted that many of these Christians were descendants of Christians who survived the Turkish genocide of 1915.. History seems to be repeating itself today.

Youkhana, a priest, or archimandrite of the Assyrian Church of the east, runs the Christian aid program northern Iraq. CAPNI aids Iraqi Christians and Yazidis uprooted by ISIS militants as well as Syrian Christians and Kurds who escaped to northern Iraq due to Turkey’s military invasion of northern Syria.

Father Samir Yousef, a Chaldean Catholic Parish priest in Al-Amadiyah (a district in Duhok), said the area where he serves “have been bombed with great intensity. Families have been forced to flee their homes to escape these attacks”.

Speaking to Asia News (based in Rome), Yousef expressed hope that the Iraqi government would press Turkey to end its military operations in Iraq.

According to Crux, observers say the Turkish military is chasing out Christians and other villagers to create its base on the Iraqi soil to launch targeted ground operations against PKK's elements.

Other Christians hoping to return to their hometowns in Nineveh plain -following the area’s 2014 takeover by ISIS- are also facing challenges, said Youkhana. CAPNI and other humanitarian organizations, as well as the Catholic Church, are helping to rebuild the communities’ lives, their homes, schools, and businesses burned and destroyed by the militants, who also laid land mines in the area.  

Only 45% of the original Christian community has returned to the Ninevah Plain. 102,000 Christians were living there in 2014, but their numbers have dwindled to 36,000 and could plummet even further by 2024.

“After we were displaced from our homes in 2014 for three years by the so-called ISIS, my shop was vandalized and robbed, and we lived in a very difficult situation during our displacement in Duhok, where I did not have a job”, explained Ayman Assem Dawood from the town of Telskuf.

“I wanted to rebuild myself and support my family, but I did not have enough money to do that. But CAPNI helped me to reopen my shop by providing a loan”, he said.

  Wafaa Khalil Murad, a Christian businesswoman, was able to return to her hometown, Bahzani, to open an accessories shop, also with the help of a small-business loan from CAPNI. Wafaa said,” This helped me live in dignity and be an active member and contributor to my community”.

Father Youkhana applauded the words of support expressed by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi during his meeting with the Patriarch of the Chaldean Church, Cardinal Louis Sako, who said he wants to promote safe coexistence projects even in the disputed areas.

But Youkhana wondered just how much power Al-Kadhimi has when Iran-backed Shiite militias and political parties, who have the majority in parliament, would likely fight his program.

“Are the minorities and the Christians on the top of the Prime Minister’s to-do list? How much power does he have to face all these challenges?” the priest asked. “People are scared to return because they do not know what is going to happen. But at the end of the day, we have to share..We are also trying to raise our voice for them”.