INKAWA,(Erbil) Kurdistan-Iraq,
June 26, 2006 (AFP) , -- "We don't have any choice," says a squatter
gesturing to the new home he has made for his family in a Christian
cemetery in Iraqi Kurdistan, after fleeing violence-plagued Baghdad.
"We are afraid of the snakes and scorpions, especially with the
children, but it's better than sleeping without a roof," says Imad
Matti who has just moved his wife and children into the Inkawa
necropolis outside the Kurdish regional capital of Erbil.
Iraq and the rest of the world are rightly worried about Shiite and
Sunni Muslims forced to flee their homes around the country because
of raging communal violence.
But the exodus of Christians from the capital, which Kurdish
officials say has seen 70 families arrive in Inkawa in recent weeks,
has not received the same attention.
The families cite the same dire situation in Baghdad, where threats
from armed groups and attacks on businesses from drinks shops to
hairdressing salons are rife.
Now Matti lives in a room that used to be the cemetery watchman's
hut, while nearby Haval Emmanuel's family has improvised their home
in adobe among the tombs.
"Living in an adobe hut in oil-rich Iraq," says Emmanuel, observing
the irony of his family's predicament. "But as difficult as the
conditions are we accept them -- because we can't endanger the lives
of our loved ones."
But Christian leaders are reluctant to speak out about the problems
faced by their congregations. The head of the Chaldean Catholic
church Emmanuel Dely refused to discuss the issue with AFP.
It was the Arab League's representative in the war-torn country,
Mokhtar Lamani of Morocco, who drew attention to a problem which he
said affected all of Iraq's religious minorities, not just
Christians.
"During a recent visit to Kurdistan, I found out that all members of
the Mandaean community in Baghdad... have asked for mass migration
to the region," Lamani told AFP.
The Mandaeans, followers of a monotheistic religion which reveres
John the Baptist but does not recognize Jesus, Mohammed or Moses,
once lived mainly in southern Iraq and neighbouring Iran but many
fled to Baghdad after Saddam Hussein suppressed a Shiite uprising in
the marshlands in the early 1990s.
Lamani said that 3,500 Christian families who had received threats
had also fled the capital for the relative safety of Kurdistan.
The sudden influx of Christians to Inkawa has made it increasingly
difficult for families of modest means to rent accommodation. A
two-room apartment now costs at least 500 dollars a month, with more
spacious properties costing double.
Kurdish authorities give some families 100 dollars a month, but that
is not enough for Imad Matti to rent a home.
Mazen Francis has an apartment, thanks to getting his son to work in
the blacksmith's he has just opened rather than sending him to
school.
Other families share a single apartment, while the demand for even
meagre homes from Inkawa estate agents remains high in this town of
30,000, almost all Christians.
"Three to six heads of families come here every day looking for
lodging, and it's more and more difficult to find something for
them," says estate agent Kameran Matti.
Father Saliwa Hibi of the town's Saint Joseph church says his parish
is trying to help those who arrive daily from Baghdad but also
increasingly from the main northern city Mosul.
There are believed to be around 800,000 Christians still in Iraq.
Chaldean Catholics form the largest community. Many of those who
could afford to do so have already fled the country since the fall
of Saddam's regime in April 2003.
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