\n\tWhen terrorists attacked America on September 11, 2001, it became a day that most Americans will never forget. June 29, 2014, was that kind of day for
\n\tIraq\u2019s small religious communities living in Mosul and the surrounding areas of the Nineveh plains.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThis was the day that the self-proclaimed Islamic State, which said it would establish the Caliphate, set out to do just that. Iraq\u2019s religious communities
\n\tliving near Syria pleaded for help as it became clear they would be attacked. By July and into August the Islamic State made its way into Iraq, securing
\n\tMosul and the surrounding areas.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThe world was faced with the barbarism that establishing \u201cthe Caliphate\u201d requires of its devotees. For Iraq\u2019s smaller religious communities, the cost was
\n\tincalculable.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tMosul fell within 24 hours. At least 1,700 people were killed in the first 10 days. Many of the Christians tried to flee, but the attack came without
\n\twarning, and some didn\u2019t make it out in time. At first the Islamic State forced the Christians who remained to pay the jizya, a tax that amounted to about
\n\t$350 a year. But as more foreign fighters came into the city, the nightmare grew worse.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tMore restrictions were placed on Christians and other groups that the Islamic State considered infidels. It was clear that Christians and other religious
\n\tminorities would not survive under their rule. Women and children were trafficked, and men were being killed. Mosul was being ethnically and religiously
\n\t\u201ccleansed.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Islamic State placed an N on the homes of Christians to identify where they were. They raided their homes, took all their possessions, and sent them to
\n\tSyria. They destroyed Christian businesses and stole their goods. According to the Assyrian Aid Society, the Islamic State confiscated at least 8 billion
\n\tIraqi dinars from the Christians and used it to continue financing the genocide throughout Iraq.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Islamic State wiped out every trace of Christianity in Mosul, turning churches into mosques and headquarters for their army; and even destroyed the
\n\tancient tomb of Jonah. This biblical prophet was a reminder of God\u2019s work in Nineveh, but who would save Nineveh now?\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tAfter conquering Mosul, the Islamic State swept through dozens of villages around Mosul, forcing the Assyrian and Chaldean Christians out of eight
\n\tvillages, the Shabak from 15 villages, and the Yezidis from seven of their villages. With no warning from the local Kurdish Peshmerga, who had said they
\n\twould protect them, the religious minorities fled for their lives just ahead of Islamic State fighters.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tAt least 150,000 Yezidis fled to Mount Sinjar, where they were trapped for days without food or water in temperatures up to 122\u00b0F. Iraqi helicopters
\n\tfinally began to fly emergency relief in and rescue those they could, but General Ahmed Ithwany, who helped in the campaign, believed that up to 70 percent
\n\thad died by the time they arrived. According to one eyewitness, \u201cthere were bodies everywhere; I don\u2019t know how I escaped.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tMany of those displaced from the villages around Mosul walked at least 17 hours through several checkpoints before finding refuge in Kurdish cities. These
\n\tfamilies had built businesses and homes, but they left everything behind, including many of the elderly who couldn\u2019t escape on foot and didn\u2019t want to slow
\n\tdown their children\u2019s escape. But the Islamic State quickly forced the elderly to leave as well. No one escaped the nightmare.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tOne couple in their 70s was forced to walk the 17 hours on foot through the night, fighting off wild dogs that attacked them as they fled. The husband
\n\tshowed me the scars still healing on his back. He showed his hands, which each bore a large sore created as he dragged himself across the desert. His wife
\n\tsaid, \u201cI thought we would die out there.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tAyda and her elderly husband tried to hide in their home when the Islamic State attacked their village. \u201cI\u2019ll never forget the day they found us. They put
\n\tus on a bus to send us away. But before we could leave, a neighbor pointed to me and made me get off the bus. Another man put a gun to my head as the
\n\tSheikh in charge took Christina from my arms. She is only 3 years old! I haven\u2019t seen her since.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tAyda pleaded, \u201cPlease help us find my daughter.\u201d This was a day no mother would ever forget.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tChristina is one of more than 5,000 young girls who were captured by the Islamic State to be raped, trafficked, or sold off as child brides and slaves
\n\tthroughout the Middle East. Yezidi leaders know where many of their girls are being held, but so far no military support has come to their aid.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tIn total, the Islamic State forced at least 600,000 Christians and other small religious communities from their homes in Mosul and throughout the Nineveh
\n\tplains. Many Arab Muslims sided with the Islamic State in the villages attacked in order to avoid facing death if they remained. For Iraq\u2019s smaller ancient
\n\treligious communities, the situation is genocide.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThroughout Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, 170,000 displaced people filled churches, parks, old buildings, malls, and homes. About 500,000 people fled to
\n\tDohuk and Zakho. They came with nothing but the memories of that fateful day, and their hope for a better future.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tAs I visited one refugee camp on the grounds of a Chaldean school that now houses hundreds of families, I saw tent 68. On it was this message: \u201cJesus is
\n\tthe light of the world.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tIt\u2019s difficult to imagine how anyone could find hope in the midst of such destruction, but many of the Christians displaced compare their suffering to that
\n\tof Job and are trusting God to help. One nun caring for the displaced said, \u201cThis crisis has forced us to come together again and to leave the distractions
\n\tof the world behind. We are helping each other as we should and coming closer to God.\u201d One of the boys I met witnessed his Muslim neighbors helping the
\n\tIslamic State beat another neighbor of his and yet he said, \u201cWe are praying for them.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tIt\u2019s hard for anyone to imagine losing their home, their business, their community, their possessions, and even their family overnight. And even harder to
\n\tconsider going back to live among neighbors who worked with the Islamic State to take over each village; or to trust a government that abandoned you to be
\n\tslaughtered.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Iraqi government sent no one to defend them. Local Kurdish fighters fled. They were left alone with no one to trust.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tNow these families, who were once able to take care of themselves, run their own businesses, and save money to get married, are living in tents and
\n\tdependent on charity to survive one day at a time.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tAn elderly man from the Kaka\u2019i community conveyed where the hope of most refugees and displaced people now rests. He said, \u201cWe have God, and we have the
\n\tWest. That\u2019s it.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tHowever, international solutions have so far been slow and insufficient. What are the options? Arm the Kurds? Destroy the Islamic State? Feed and house the
\n\trefugees? Help them return home!\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tBut what will they go back to? Can they trust their country and neighbors? And is it really possible to rebuild again?\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThe hundreds of thousands who have been displaced by the Islamic State need more than money. They need their dignity, their families, and their hope for a
\n\tbetter future.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tIn 2003 less than 3 percent of Iraq\u2019s population included Assyrian, Chaldean, Yezidi, Shabak, Mandaean, or Kaka\u2019i communities. Within a decade nearly two
\n\tthirds of the Assyrian and Chaldean communities had either fled the country or been killed. Of the 50,000 Mandaeans, a pacifist religious community that
\n\tfollows the teachings of John the Baptist, there are now less than 4,000 remaining. At least one third of the Yezidi population, a Zoroastrian religious
\n\tcommunity, has either fled or been killed since the war began. Shabak and Kaka\u2019i have also been targeted by terrorists, who consider all of these
\n\tcommunities infidels. These communities are now on the verge of extinction in Iraq.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tFor the past decade they have been disproportionately affected by the violence. At one point they made up nearly 17 percent of the refugees in surrounding
\n\tcountries.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tOf those who remained in Iraq, they tried to survive and maintain their ancient communities. Most Assyrian and Chaldean Christians returned to the Nineveh
\n\tplains. The Iraqi constitution recognized the historic connection these and the other small religious communities had to this area, and provided a
\n\tmechanism for them to establish their own provincial government in the Nineveh plains.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tFaced with constant discrimination throughout Iraq and Kurdistan, underrepresented in the government, marginalized by Kurdish and Arab society, unable to
\n\tdevelop their own natural resources, and constantly attacked by extremist groups, it was the possibility of provincial governance that offered Iraq\u2019s most
\n\tvulnerable communities hope. In early 2014 the Iraqi Parliament finally began discussing the establishment of the Nineveh plains provincial government. But
\n\ttheir hopes were short-lived.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tKurdish leaders opposed the plan and claimed that part of the Nineveh plains was in their territory. Since the Iraqi and Kurdish governments haven\u2019t agreed
\n\ton the borders of Kurdistan, it is difficult for the Nineveh plains to establish a provincial government. Now that the area has been overrun by the Islamic
\n\tState, the future of the region is even more uncertain.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tAs Kurds are given weapons to fight the Islamic State, they will also likely claim control over the Nineveh plains. Once again the small religious
\n\tcommunities in the Nineveh plains will be marginalized.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tUnable to trust their former neighbors, their government, or the international community, which is now arming the groups opposed to their freedom, Iraq\u2019s
\n\treligious communities are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They are dependent on the Kurdish areas for their current survival, but they know that it
\n\tcomes with a high price. It means they will never be able to govern themselves and their natural resources, without which they cannot rebuild and sustain
\n\ttheir communities in Iraq.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tChristians running the camps throughout Erbil all confided that the local Kurdish government was pressuring them to move the refugees into camps outside
\n\tthe city. These camps were not prepared for the winter and would only cause a humanitarian disaster when the weather changed. But Kurdish leaders are
\n\ttrying to show that they can care for the refugees in ways the church can\u2019t in order to obtain international financial and military support.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tAs a result, many Assyrian and Chaldean Christians want to leave the country. For them, the writing is on the wall. They\u2019ve tried to survive and rebuild,
\n\tand now it\u2019s clear that this may be impossible.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tWhile other communities are also at risk, most of them want to remain in Iraq. Yezidi leaders are calling for direct military support to regain their areas
\n\talong the border of Syria, which are outside any territory claimed by the Kurds.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tBut without a long-term solution, all of these small religious communities face an immediate genocide at the hands of the Islamic State and a slow genocide
\n\tin the Kurdish region as their lands are taken over by a new government that continues to treat them as second-class citizens and forces them to hide their
\n\treligious identity.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThere is only one way to ensure the survival of Iraq\u2019s ancient religious communities: help the locals regain their land and territorial integrity. If they
\n\tlose this, their only option is to resettle outside Iraq; and likely no amount of humanitarian assistance will prevent their exodus from the area.\n\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When terrorists attacked America on September 11, 2001, it became a day that most Americans will never forget. June 29, 2014, was that kind of day for Iraq\u2019s small religious communities living in Mosul and the surrounding areas of the Nineveh plains. This was the day that the self-proclaimed Islamic State, which said it would<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[304],"tags":[136],"class_list":["post-6287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-january-february-2015","tag-january-february-2015"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}