February 2017 Persecution Magazine (2 of 4)

ICC Exclusive
An Uncertain
Future for
Iraq’s Christians
As ISIS is pushed back by coalition forces, many Christians are left
looking towards a complex and uncertain future.
By William Stark
I
was living with my husband and two
sons when ISIS attacked Qeraqosh.
We were lucky as we had sent our
daughter out of the village a week
earlier to be with her aunt.”
Sana’a was speaking of that fateful
day in 2014 when ISIS militants
began their assault on Christian towns
and villages across the Nineveh Plain,
the homeland of Iraq’s Christians, to
establish their caliphate in northern Iraq.
“Our house was far from the center of the
city,” Sana’a explained. “That’s why we didn’t
know that ISIS occupied our city and why we
didn’t try to flee right away. After three days,
we realized that ISIS occupied our town. We
tried to hide in our house, but three armed men
broke the lock on the gate and then knocked
down the door when we didn’t reply to their
knocking. That was when the most terrible
period of my life started.”
Immediately, the armed men took the
“
Christian family to a local mosque where
other Christian families were also gathered.
The Christian men and women were then
separated by the armed men they soon discovered
were ISIS militants.
“They told us that they would be releasing
the elderly women,” Sana’a continued. “When
they started separating us, I realized that this was
the last time that I would see my husband and
two sons. I wish that they would have left my
youngest son with me at least. But they didn’t.
When they forced [the elderly women] to leave
the mosque, my youngest son waved his hand
at me, telling me not to leave. I can’t forget my
son waving his hand. I didn’t have [a] choice.”
Over 200,000 Christians were forced to
flee their homes, becoming either internally
displaced people (IDPs) in Kurdistan or refugees
abroad.
Since ISIS captured international headlines
over two years ago, many have questioned
what the future holds for Iraq’s Christians.
Often, this gets broken down into a simple
dichotomy. Will the violence unleashed by
ISIS cause Iraqi Christians to fade into the
pages of history or will Iraqi Christians, now
more visible on an international level, rebuild
the towns and villages devastated by ISIS?
Unfortunately, both the questions and the
answers surrounding the uncertain future of
Iraq’s Christians are likely more complex.
Despite its complexity, the future of Christianity
in Iraq is one of the most important issues that
must be answered for the Church today.
Life as an IDP
Truly, no one will be able to detail the full
suffering endured by Christians during the
initial stages of the crisis. Many were faced
with life or death decisions, like Sana’a and
her family, and were forced into IDP camps
spread across northern Iraq.
Those who were displaced were totally
2 PERSECU ION.org
FEBRUARY 2017
INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN CONCERN