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Mosul Christians reluctant to return
20.11.2008
By Hisham Mohammed Ali in Sulaimaniyah, Iraqi
Kurdistan region (ICR No. 276, 20-Nov-08)
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Community worries about continued threats despite
stepped up security and financial aid.
November 20, 2008
Christians from Mosul are hesitant about returning
home despite cash offerings and pledges of stronger
security in and around the volatile northern city.
The Iraqi government has boosted the number of
security forces and troops in Mosul to 35,000 and is
offering displaced Christian families up to 1.5
million Iraqi dinars (1,300 US dollars) to return to
their homes. Iraqi president Jalal Talabani also
earlier this month pledged 900,000 dollars to
support and protect the community.
An estimated 2,000 families – approximately half of
Mosul’s Christian population – fled Mosul and its
surrounding areas following the killings of
Christians there last month.
International aid agencies and local rights groups
report that while Christians have slowly trickled
back into Mosul in recent weeks,www.ekurd.net
many are unwilling to
return to their homes out of fear that their
community will be targeted again.
Violence has declined, but there is concern that the
killings of two Christian women in Mosul last week
could deter Christians from returning.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees,
UNHCR, reported last week that about one-third of
approximately the 1,000 families that had fled Al-Hamdaniya,
a largely Christian area on the outskirts of Mosul,
had returned.
UNHCR, which provided support to Christians who had
fled to neighbouring Syria and other parts of Iraq
in October, noted that accurate figures were
difficult to obtain and some displaced Christians
were reluctant to register with the government.
Safa Nathir Kamu, a 42-year-old engineer who fled to
Erbil province 80 kilometres east of Mosul, praised
Talabani’s initiative but said security guarantees –
not financial incentives –
would convince him to return.
“We would like to go back home,”said Kamu. “We need
security, but unfortunately security in Mosul is
nothing more than pictures on TV.”
UNHCR said many Christians were returning to Mosul
out of concern for their job security or for
education. Many were staying in churches or in
private homes and relied on aid groups for basic
supplies.
The US military has blamed al-Qaeda sympathisers for
targeting Christians in Mosul, the capital of
Nineveh province and a stronghold of the Sunni
insurgency which Iraqi and US forces are battling to
control.
The majority of Iraq’s Christians are believed to
reside in Nineveh. Assyrians, Chaldeans and
Catholics largely consider the province their
homeland.
Defence ministry spokesman Mohammed Al-Askari said
the government had no specific plan to protect only
Christians but was working to establish security in
Mosul “for everyone”.
Mosul deputy governor Khasro Goran said the
government had responded to the attacks by sending
in additional police and military and that “tough
security procedures [were] in place”.
Agence-France Presse, citing an unnamed senior Iraqi
official, reported that Baghdad had replaced the
commander of operations in the province and sent two
brigades to Mosul following the attacks on
Christians in October.
But the steps have done little to ease the fears of
Mosul’s Christian community,www.ekurd.net
which along with other
religious and ethnic minorities, has suffered
persecution in the city and elsewhere over the past
five years.
Christians from Mosul and other Iraqi cities such as
Baghdad have fled to Iraqi Kurdistan, Syria and the
rural Nineveh plains region.
Mosul’s lack of security has made minorities
particularly vulnerable. As Christians began
returning to Mosul last week, two sisters were shot
dead outside their home, which was then destroyed by
bombs planted inside.
The bullet-riddled bodies of at least seven
Christians were discovered in Mosul in mid-October,
and at least three abandoned Christian homes were
bombed.
Qasim Amin, an advocate for Mosul’s displaced with
the group Kurdish Human Rights Watch, said the
financial aid had encouraged many Christians to
return in recent weeks.
But he expressed concern that the killings could
“scare away Christians … They would probably
consider fleeing again”.
The top United Nations official in Iraq, Staffan de
Mistura, issued a statement after the two sisters
were killed urging the Iraqi government to protect
the country’s minorities by ensuring that
perpetrators “are swiftly brought to justice”.
“Government procedures are not good enough,” said
Qriyaqus Mansur Gorgis, chief of Bet Nahrain, an
Assyrian party in Mosul. “It’s true that there is a
heavy security presence in the city, but Christians
are still targeted. So what’s the use of [added
security]?”
The attacks have also resurrected long-standing
Kurdish-Christian tensions and debates over whether
Iraq’s minorities should have autonomous
administrative areas.
Some Christians from Nineveh have fled to
neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan and see the Kurds as
protectors, but Qasim Amin of Kurdish Human Rights
Watch said that many of the displaced his
organisation interviewed blamed the Kurdish
authorities for the violence.
Kurdish parties hold substantial political power in
Nineveh province and have been accused of
discriminating against other minority groups.
“There is some sort of political stupidity in
believing that the Kurds are behind displacing
Christians,” said Khasraw Goran, Mosul’s deputy
governor and a member of the Kurdistan Democratic
Party. “Even if an earthquake rocks Mosul,
chauvinists in the city would accuse Kurds of being
behind it.”
Bet Nahrain secretary-general Romeo Hakari said he
believed the Kurds support Christians and that the
organisation has evidence that the Islamic State of
Iraq,www.ekurd.net
an al-Qaeda-affiliated
militia that has controlled Mosul, had threatened to
kill Christians if they did not leave the area.
Some Christian and other Iraqi minority groups have
pushed for an autonomous administrative region in
Nineveh, arguing that it could help to give
minorities political power and protect them from
future attacks.
Minority groups voiced alarm earlier this month when
the Iraqi parliament voted to guarantee six of the
400 provincial council seats to small religious and
ethnic minority groups – a number they felt was too
small.
“Autonomy is the sole way out of these crises,” said
Hakari. “Autonomy is not the best solution; it is a
partial solution that stops conflicts from
continuing.
“The best [solution] is to solve the political
conflict in the city, which is in essence a fight
for power.”
Hisham Mohammed Ali, a Mosul native, is an IWPR-trained
journalist in Sulaimaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan region.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, iwpr
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