The forgotten Catholics of Iraq

SADDAM’S GOVERNMENT was overthrown on 9 April 2003, and most of the figures on the pack of cards have either been killed or detained, including Saddam Hussein himself and his two sons. Now, one year after the Anglo American military invasion into Iraq, security in that war-torn area is worsening with an increase in suicide bomb attacks. Iraqi policemen and civilians working at US bases, seen as collaborators of the occupation forces, are being especially targeted.

Smiles of hope

In this background of continuing violence, Christians are living in uncertainty and fear of attacks. There are about 800,000 Christians in Iraq, four percent of the population. The Chaldean Catholics constitute the largest of the Christian communities, which also include Assyrians, Syrians, Armenians and Latins.
In November 2002, I visited Iraq as a member of a Caritas Internationalis humanitarian delegation. The late Patriarch Raphael I Bidawid, Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon, received us at his residence and with kind words thanked the people of goodwill who helped the Iraqi people during the twelve years of UN economic sanctions. Every day the threat of war was becoming more real and the document by Caritas Internationalis, On the Brink of War: A Recipe for a Humanitarian Disaster, warned that the already vulnerable Iraqi people would be the first victims of the war. I travelled across Iraq in an ancient Oldsmobile full of petrol fumes and cigarette smoke visiting Caritas centres in Mosul, Kirkuk, Karaqosh Old Town, Alquosh and Baghdad. I could see the suffering of the Iraqi people, mothers and children, the young and the elderly with anaemia and malnutrition, but also smiles of hope that the sanctions would soon come to an end. Everyone was praying for peace. At the Chaldean Church of Karakosh Old Town they celebrated the wedding of Diana and Irdev, both staff members of Caritas Iraq.

Tragic aftermath

I returned to Baghdad on 1 May 2003, when Bush announced the end of the war, and stayed at the Chaldean Parish of St Elya in New Baghdad, next to the Al-Abban Mosque. Fr. Basha Warda, the 33- year-old parish priest, showed me a video he filmed during the war. I could see the horror on the faces of people taking shelter in the church while the bombs and missiles were falling on Baghdad. The families spending the night under the protection of the church were either praying or sharing food. I asked Fr. Basha if all those in the church were Catholics, and he told me, “People from the mosque next door were sharing with us the space and solidarity”.
In the centre of Baghdad, I visited the Missionaries of Charity, four Sisters of Mother Teresa, who look after twenty-four orphaned children aged between two and twelve with physical and mental disabilities. Their superior, Sister Densy, told me, “During the years that I have been in Baghdad, we have received many children from families which, due to lack of resources, were unable to look after them”. In brightly lit rooms children peered with curiosity or smiled with innocence through the pale blue safety bars of rows of beds in perfect order. “When the heat is unbearable” – Sister Densy added – “we rent a bus and with the help of dedicated volunteers we take the children to the park, which they love”. The house was small and lacked heating and air conditioning.

Trip continues

I then travelled to the north, to Mosul and stayed at Mar Gurguis (Saint George) Monastery, situated on a hill 10 km north of Mosul. When we arrived at the monastery the rector offered us a monk’s cell. Pilgrims come from all over Iraq to visit the monastery, especially on Saint George’s Day. It is respected as a place of pilgrimage by Christians and Muslims alike, who visit it to receive blessings and to enjoy the surrounding green hills. After Sunday Mass families spend the day in the gardens. During the bombings last year, families came from Baghdad for protection.
The following evening I stayed overnight at the Monastery of Raban Hormiz, near Alquosh, run by Fr. Mofeed Toma Marcus. In the early morning I met a group of smiling children sweeping the corridors. They were orphans living at the monastery. Local Christians were unhappy that increasing numbers of orphans were being adopted by Moslem families and converted to Islam. They asked Fr. Marcus to rescue the children and he established this orphanage for them. It is not an ideal situation for the children who, without any means of transport to take them to school, have to walk long distances through fields infested with snakes so venomous that a mere scratch could be fatal.
In Karakosh Old Town I returned to see three Chaldean Catholic families I had met in November 2002. The family of Putrus Karoomi Hana 45, who was disabled and without a wheelchair, because the parts needed to make one were classed as ‘dual use’, told me he died two months after I had met him. His wife and two children have no income and are relying on food parcels from Caritas. I also visited Tania Al-Gameel, 35, and her family of six children.
Her husband Salim was discharged from the army, but their living conditions were still very difficult because of the lack of income. Magida Kareem and her seven children, who were abandoned by their father are also facing difficult times. They live in bad housing conditions, and depend on support from Caritas Iraq.

House of dust

Yousif Bahoshy, from Caritas Iraq recently told me, “The situation in the hospitals is of grave concern. Security in the country is worsening every day but Caritas staff are not under attack. Caritas has been working in Iraq since 1992, and is seen as a local organisation”.
The mass emigration of Christians since the 1991 Gulf war is a matter of concern. I asked Bishop Andreas Abouna, chaplain to the Chaldean Catholic community in Britain until his return as Auxiliary Bishop of Baghdad in February, if the change in government will reverse this trend. “The Christians will be weak if the educated emigrate from the country. If they feel secure and have jobs they won’t emigrate”.
Fr. Basha Warda, Bishop Andreas Abouna, and three young people, are building a website for the Chaldean Church, www.kookhi.org. The homepage has the Our Father in Arabic, English, Chaldean and Aramaic, and when the website is launched, information and articles will be published in Arabic, English, French and Italian. The website aims to make the Chaldean Church more open and to unite Chaldeans throughout the world, fifty percent of whom live outside Iraq in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe. Kookhi means ‘House of Dust’, and is the name of the oldest church in Mesopotamia, built around 100 AD, about three kilometres south of Baghdad.

Lack of optimism

In September, the Chaldean bishops sent a letter to Paul Bremer, the chief US executive authority in the country, asking him not to ignore the Christians who are the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of Iraq. One of the twenty-five members on the Governing Council is a Christian, Younadem Kana, who is Minister for Transport; two priests and three Christian lawyers are among the 150 people preparing the constitution. The priests are Archbishop Louis Sako, who became Archbishop of Kirkuk in September, and Fr. Salam Zaker, an expert in Canon Law, who will ensure Christians are represented in the constitution.
With the increase in suicide bomb attacks many Iraqis are living in fear. Few look to the future with optimism. In January, four Christian women working at a military base west of Baghdad were killed and six wounded as they were returning home on a bus.
The majority of people have lost their jobs and with the end of the oil-for-food program, many cannot provide for their families. Unemployment is the biggest problem and the economic situation is pushing people into crime. The practice of kidnapping children and asking for a ransom from parents is becoming more widespread. In Baghdad, in the Chaldean-Christian road, six adolescents have already been abducted, in the Al-Dora district, at least seven children of Christian parents are missing and in the district of Zaiuna, a residential area in Baghdad, five more have been kidnapped.
At a recent meeting of humanitarian agencies in Amman, Jordan, Oliver Burch, the Christian Aid’s emergency programme manager for Iraq, said “I understand that the practice of kidnapping children as ransom started in the city of Basra and has spread to Baghdad. Abu Marba, an Iraqi contractor working with Christian Aid, a partner of the Middle East Council of Churches, told me of a gardener who works for his organisation whose daughter was kidnapped, so it’s not restricted to the well off”.
Mr Burch added that the Iraqi police were not able to control the crime wave and that the police have great difficulty in winning the people’s trust because they are associated with the coalition forces, which are increasingly resented in Iraq now. “The police are only lightly armed while criminals have more powerful weapons. Furthermore, the police are said to be easily bribed, so it’s difficult for people to take them seriously”.
 Basic medicines are lacking in the hospitals, and electricity and water are available only for a few hours a day. In a short period of time the coalition forces have lost the goodwill of the people of Iraq. The Coalition Provisional Authority is preparing to hand over sovereignty to the Iraqis on 30 June. The majority Shias, led by Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, want direct elections rather than a process of selection through regional caucuses. This will mean a Shia majority in the government and the risk of Iraq becoming a theocracy. How will this affect the Christians, Kurds, Sunnis and other minorities? In this period of crisis, Christians in Iraq are facing an uncertain future and need the support of Christians throughout the world.