HUNDREDS of Christian families are among the estimated half-a-million Iraqis who have fled from the northern city of Mosul this week, after its takeover by Islamist fighters.
At least one church was seen on fire as elements of the al-Qaeda offshoot the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (the Levant) (ISIS) occupied and raised black flags over key institutions. Iraqi security forces put up scant resistance before fleeing for their lives.
The loss of government control over Mosul represents a body-blow to the Christian community in Iraq. The city, which has been relatively quiet over recent months, is regarded as one of the most secure in Iraq. It is home to a wide range of religious and ethnic groups, who have generally lived side by side without problems.
Over recent years, thousands of Christians have sought shelter there, fleeing from violence and persecution in Baghdad and other cities in the south.
Now, scores of Christian families are seeking sanctuary again, this time in the area of northern Iraq controlled by the Kurdish Regional Government. Churches in this region are struggling to cope with the influx of displaced Christians. One Iraqi pastor is quoted as saying that 99 per cent of Mosul’s Christian community has left the city.
A Dominican friar, Fr Najeeb Michaeel, sent a message to a fellow priest on Tuesday which spoke of “a critical and apocalyptical situation of violence in Mosul. Most of the inhabitants have already abandoned their houses and fled into the villages, and are sleeping in the open without anything to eat or drink.”
He said that ISIS fighters had killed adults and children, and their bodies had been “left in the streets, and in the houses, by the hundreds, without pity”. ISIS fighters were approaching the friary: “We are now surrounded and threatened. Pray for us.”
It is hard to see ISIS being forced out of Mosul, and the towns and villages near by, in the foreseeable future. The Iraqi army has been trying without success since December to retake the towns of Fallujah and Ramadi, in Anbar province, west of Baghdad. These are traditional centres of Sunni power, and provided a base for al-Qaeda groups during the occupation of Iraq by the United States. The army’s failure to recapture the two towns in Anbar has allowed ISIS to push northwards.
The expectation is that the Islamists will now seek to capture more territory close to Baghdad, with the aim of encircling the capital. At this point, if the Iraqi army is still ineffective in stemming the advance, Shia militias could reappear, possibly with support from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
In the absence of any political process that might seek to restore calm, and as ISIS scents more easy victories, Iraq must brace itself for a new phase of civil conflict. Church Times
