Iraq’s struggling Christians hope for boost from Pope Francis visit

Nasser Banyameen speaks about his hometown of Qaraqosh in the historical heartland of Iraqi Christianity with nostalgia. Before Daesh group fighters swept through the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq. Before the militants shattered his sense of peace. Before panicked relatives and neighbors fled, some never to return.

Iraq’s Christian communities in the area were dealt a severe blow when they were scattered by the Daesh onslaught in 2014, further shrinking the country’s already dwindling Christian population.

Many hope their struggle to endure will get a boost from a historic visit by Pope Francis planned in March.

Among the places on his itinerary is Qaraqosh, where this week Vatican and Iraqi flags fluttered from light poles, some adorned with the pope’s image.

Francis’ visit, his first foreign trip since the coronavirus pandemic and the first ever by a pope to Iraq, is a sign that “You’re not alone,” said Monsignor Segundo Tejado Muñoz, the undersecretary of the Vatican’s development office. “There’s someone who is thinking of you, who is with you. And these signs are so important. So important.”

The Daesh juggernaut and the long war to drive the militants out left ransacked homes and charred or pulverized buildings around the north. But the biggest loss perhaps has been the people.

Traditionally Christian towns across the Nineveh Plains virtually emptied out and, by some of the widely varying estimates, fewer than half of the Christians who fled have returned.

The Vatican and the pope have frequently insisted on the need to preserve Iraq’s ancient Christian communities and create the security, economic and social conditions for those who have left to return.

To do that, the Vatican for years has helped coordinate a network of Catholic non-governmental organizations providing help in the field in Iraq and other countries, including in education, health care and reconstruction. The aid is non-denominational — Muslims are helped as well as Christians — and the overall hope is that the delicate interfaith balance can be preserved and strengthened. The pope’s March 5-8 visit will also have a strong interfaith component.

“People want to look for a better future for their families, so you can’t stop them if they have the intention of going somewhere else,” Tejado said. “But at least we try to create the conditions they might return.”

That could be difficult.

Many Christians who fled the Daesh advance have either stayed in Iraq’s Kurdistan region or started new lives abroad. While those who have returned have been rebuilding fractured but vibrant communities with resolve, some still feel vulnerable and eye better lives elsewhere.

Banyameen returned in 2019 from the Kurdish region to his house in Qaraqosh, also known as Bakhdida. But many family members who fled like him ended up in Australia and Germany. Daesh sleeper cells still carry out attacks in parts of Iraq, so he worries about the specter of a militant resurgence, the future of his three children and Iraq’s economic and security woes.

“The homeland is the family, not the house … I feel very homesick,” he said. “When something is broken, it doesn’t go back to the way it used to be.”

Their home has been repaired, but the sight of empty or damaged ones on their street reminds his wife, Ban Saeed, of the Daesh reign of terror. After she gave birth to the couple’s third child in December, she wondered if it would have been better for their daughter to have been born abroad.

“If we left, I am sure their future would be better abroad, not like here,” she said. “There would be safety and I wouldn’t be scared for them when they come and go.”

The numerical decline and waning clout of Iraqi Christians started before the Daesh’s persecution of religious minorities like theirs. Christians were among groups targeted by militants amid the breakdown in security after the 2003 US-led invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein.

The Chaldean Catholic Patriarch, Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, estimated that 1 million Christians have left Iraq since 2003 and about 500,000 remained. But there are no official figures, and estimates vary: Some put the number left at fewer than 250,000.

Without faith the government can provide security from potential violence, legal protections and economic opportunities, many Christians are wary of returning.

Some Christians lament broken trust with some Muslims in neighboring villages who they believe sympathized with Daesh or helped pillage their homes. They are also wary of the ascension of largely Shiite militias and fearful of what they say are unfavorable demographic changes in some traditionally Christian areas.

Etched in the minds of many are the memories of the flight to escape Daesh, the indignities of displacement and the scenes of devastation that awaited those who returned, including burnt out churches and desecrated tombs.

As he left under cover of darkness shortly before the militants entered his town of Karamlis in 2014, the Rev. Thabet Habeb felt pain for all that he was leaving behind. He took little besides some manuscripts, including a Bible.

“It was as if we had been expelled forever from the lands of our grandfathers.”