JANUARY 2022

him to leave as soon as possible. He told him he
would send an army escort for him. Three minutes
later, the escort arrived, Archbishop Nicodemus
Daoud Matti Sharaf was told he had five minutes to
pack up his belongings and be escorted out of Mosul.
In those last few days before the fall of Mosul,
the Archbishop didn’t believe a time would come
that he would have to leave his beloved archdiocese.
He worried about his parishioners, and he
prayed for peace.
He was forced to leave behind hundreds of other
valuable religious manuscripts dating back to the
second and third century of Christianity. As the
entourage left, the archbishop called his priests and
parishioners on his two mobile phones, frantically
advising them to get out.
All around him, thousands of others were also
fleeing with little more than the clothes on their
back. It is an image that still haunts him today,
lines of exiles walking out of their homeland in
shock and fear.
“I left the archdiocese house with very little, just
my clothes. I forgot to take my laptop. I took just my
passport and seven manuscripts that are very old.”
A few weeks later, some of those same exiles
returned to Mosul, hoping to pick up the pieces of
their lives, the archbishop says. The Islamic State
however had different plans, telling them they
must convert to Islam, pay a heavy tax, or die.
At least half of the country’s Christian population
has fled for safer regions such as Kurdistan or
even other countries. “For 10 or 11 years, we lived
in Mosul without government,” he said. “There is
no real government in Iraq.
“We are a few of the last people who speak Jesus’
language. We are Aramaic people of Mesopotamia,
and we don’t have these rights or governments to
protect us? Look upon us as frogs, we’ll accept that
— just protect us so we can stay in our land.”
In total, the archbishop estimates there are
about 140,000 Christian Iraqi refugees in Kurdistan,
most of them from Mosul. Prior to 2003, estimates
suggest, there were 130,000 Iraqi Christians
in Mosul alone. Just before the Islamic State took
over Mosul, they were down to about 10,000, according
to Associated Press.
In exile, accommodations and food supplies are
sparse. Many families share caravans or shipping
containers as shelter, while the luckier ones occupy
a simple home.
At first, the Church was able to provide shelter
and food, but costs have overwhelmed their
efforts and international relief is needed, he said.
Additionally, other exiles, the Yazidis, a religious
Kurdish group also targeted by Islamic State, are
displaced and struggling to survive.
Along with thousands of other Iraqi Christians,
the Bishop is now living in exile in Ankawa, a small
town located in Erbil, a city in the autonomous region
of Kurdistan, 90 kilometers east of Mosul.
Fears of Displaced Christians
According to estimates, after the US-led invasion
of Iraq in 2003, out of the original population of
1.4 million, only 300,000 Christians remained in
the country, mostly in the northern towns. Hundreds
of thousands have left since ISIS took over
the territory in 2014. They are spread across refugee
camps in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey. Some
have made their way to Europe.
There has been a significant influx of Shiite
Muslims to the region, which is having a big impact.
This has to do with the role Shiite troops and
militias played in the liberation of Christian towns;
their excuse is to return the control to the Iraqi
government. This battle against ISIS, however,
was a patriotic duty - it didn’t mean these fighters
become occupiers and replace the old enemy, taking
over their territory. According to the bishop,
Christians are afraid and lack confidence about the
future in part because of this evident greed.
The Islamic parties continue the pressure to bring
about a population change in the Christian regions
and towns of the Nineveh plain region. The lack of
legal recourse and protection of the rights of Christians
mean many of our people will want to leave
the country. The bishop believes Iraq will ultimately
lose all its Christians, and with it, the commitment
to brotherhood and peaceful coexistence—the ancient
and authentic legacy of our faith.
“The Shiite Shabaks in the area are turning on
the Christians, saying we are their enemy. They
are putting pressure on us to leave our region and
towns. That would be a humanitarian disaster.
“In Bartella, the Shabak Shiites are completing
a residential project of 25 acres; who will
live there? It clearly means that there is a plan to
bring in people from outside the region. Isn’t that
a threat to the security of the region and to the
Christian communities? We are very pessimistic
about this project, and we call on all concerned
parties to intervene, because it threatens to change
the demographics of the region.”
The archbishop talked in Brussels at the parliament,
telling them, “You should wake up, because
you accept people and think they’re refugees, but
they are not all refugees, and most have been radicalized.
Those people are the same ones who came
to our land many years ago and we accepted them
with open arms. We opened our doors and hearts
for them, and they pushed us to be a minority in
our ancestral land, then refugees in our land!”
Hopes, revival and returns
The current situation of the Christian community
on the Nineveh Plains and in Mosul shows that
few Christians have returned to the region in the
wake of the ouster of ISIS. According to sources,
the number of families that have returned to Mosul
is no more than 60. Some families have returned
because their children had to go back to school or
university; some heads of households are state employees
and were forced go back to keep their jobs.
This does not mean that these families are living in
a safe and stable situation.
Things are a bit better on the Nineveh Plain
Mor Nicodemus Daoud Matti Sharaf visited the Chaldean Community Foundation in October of 2021
compared to the situation in Mosul. Some 5,200
families have returned to Qaraqosh; 1,169 to Bartella;
350 to Karamles; 456 to Bashiqa and Bahzani;
an estimated 973 families have returned to Teleskuf.
All these figures are estimates because the situation
in the area remains confusing and is evolving.
According to assessments, more than 12,000
homes need rebuilding – those burned, destroyed,
or partially damaged by ISIS – and the estimated
cost of this revival will be more than $290 million.
There are no guarantees for these families regarding
security or their future. Help from national
and international authorities is needed so that the
criminal activities that targeted Christians before
2014 and the invasion of ISIS will not resume.
BRAVE BISHOP continued on page 16
JANUARY 2022 CHALDEAN NEWS 15