Written by Canon Andrew White, the Vicar of Baghdad. I felt compelled to post this to encourage prayer and support for our fellow christians in Iraq who are suffering unspeakable persecution.
August 10th, 2014
I have just returned from a secret visit to Qaraqosh – once the largest Christian town in Iraq, but no longer. Today, Qaraqosh stands 90 per cent empty, desecrated by the gunmen of the fanatical Islamic State terror group now in control. The majority of the town’s 50,000 people have fled, fearing that, like other Christians in this region, they will be massacred. The militants, in a further act of sacrilege, have established their administrative posts in the abandoned churches. My visit, under the noses of the gunmen, was frightening – but that is nothing to the terror of the poor souls left behind. Since I went to St George’s Anglican church in Baghdad in 2003 – the only Anglican church in the city – I have seen countless terrible things. Many of my congregation have been killed or mutilated in the years of violence. But I have never witnessed anything on the scale, or which has affected me quite so dreadfully as on this visit to the north of Iraq. In the nearby city of Irbil, I found many of those Christians who had fled. Some 30,000 refugees are packed into the Kurdish capital, forming a new Christian suburb.
I spoke to one woman who had survived the massacres in Qaraqosh. She had a bandaged left hand. When IS soldiers could not remove her gold wedding ring, they had simply hacked off her finger. She wept as she told me. The refugees are now penniless, robbed of their homes and possessions. Christian houses were daubed with the letter ‘N’ for Nazere and given to Muslim families. I met Hana, who used to be the caretaker of my church in Baghdad, and fought to stay dry-eyed as he told me the fate of his youngest son, aged five. The boy was chopped in half in front of Hana’s eyes during an IS attack.
The family had moved north to Qaraqosh when Hana, who was a founding member of my church, retired. I baptised his remaining children there in Irbil. The murdered little boy had been named Andrew, after me. I cry now every time I think of him. People say to me: ‘Is it really as terrible as this? Can these atrocities be real?’ I tell them: ‘Yes. It is as real and terrible as this.’
Qaraqosh has become a place of terror. Its people were shot and some – already dead – were ‘crucified’, a final humiliation and an outrage against the individual, and the faith they had refused to abandon. I am sorry to say that I have seen the pictures printed on these pages, and am sickened. Now Irbil fears it too will fall to the Islamists, as they expand what they claim is a new caliphate. And without Irbil there is no hope for the Christians. They are running out of places to go. What is happening in northern Iraq is almost unimaginable. Part of my purpose on this journey was to help feed and clothe this desperate population, using £300,000 from the Anglican Church in the UK, and other generous individuals.
“Yet it feels that we are alone.”
Yet it feels that we are alone. Where is the response of the British Government? We have seen nothing on the ground. Members of the worldwide Anglican Communion are praying over this devastating situation. But there is a desperate need for practical action, too: these people need mattresses, clothes, blankets and food. Children are starving. Families are crammed into churches to sleep on the floors. We must also ask: ‘What next?’ Iraq’s Christians can’t stay in Kurdistan forever. At some point they must be rescued and relocated. They will flee to Turkey, then Canada, Australia or America. Britain has said it will not take one Iraqi refugee. The people of this region have had their homes burned and destroyed before. Each time the Christians have survived and fought back, returning to rebuild desecrated churches and their lives. It is hard to see, however, that this will happen this time.
Where is their protection? It is a terrible thing to wish, but I now believe that military action of some sort is necessary, if only to reduce the movement of IS tanks, their soldiers, and their power and authority on the ground. Even this is not the solution in the long run. We need money, and we need prayer. Without those we have nothing.
Those wanting to donate can do so at the website of the Foundation For Relief And Reconciliation In The Middle East: http://www.frrme.org
Click here for an even more recent update from Andrew White on Iraq
