STALKED
World Magazine
No v 21 2008
NC
Over 2 million Iraqis have fled to neighboring countries. Victims
of organized militant groups, most are traumatized into never going
back–but where do they go from here? | Mindy Belz
ALEPPO and DAMASCUS, Syria–Thousands of Iraqi Christians have found
threats like this under their front doors or stoops, in stairwells or
shoved through their courtyard gates: "Be informed that we will cut
your heads and leave your dead bodies with no organs and no heads in
your stores and houses. We know your houses and we know your family. We
will kill you one after the other. Depart the Muslim areas."
Others have received text messages in Arabic like this one sent to a
Christian family in Mosul earlier this month: "When your head is put
over your back [an expression describing how sheep are slaughtered]
then there is no chance to feel sorry for you. It will be too
late. Allah is the supporter who gives swords to his warriors."
Christians sometimes receive the threats while shopping in the market
or repairing a carburetor. They are often personal and usually signed
by "al-Mujahideen," "al-Jihad," "al-Tawheed company" or other militant
groups, splinters of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Few ever identify who is behind
the threats but all reach the same conclusion, as one recipient put it:
"To stay is to be killed."
(Note: This article in several places uses sources not identified or
identified only by their first name. This is at the sources’ request
and WORLD’s recognition that their lives are at risk.)
As a result, over 2 million Iraqis–about 25 percent of them identified
as Christians–have fled to neighboring countries, mostly Jordan,
Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. (View the map.) Judging from extensive
conversations with Iraqis living in Jordan and Syria, few want to
go home. While at least 40,000 Iraqis have been killed in fighting,
random violence, and terrorism since the U.S. invasion in 2003, these
refugees are the Iraq War’s living casualties–psychologically damaged
from the prolonged terrorism, afraid of the next text message or the
letter on the doormat, and helpless before a fearful future.
"This is different from other refugee situations in the past," Roger
Winter, the former U.S. Special Representative for Sudan and past
president of the U.S. Committee for Refugees, told me. "The bad guys
are directly stalking Christians and other targeted groups in order
to kill some and get their community out. The organized stalking to
drive them out makes them so vulnerable."
How can Americans help and how should president-elect Barack Obama
respond, particularly as Iraq approaches key elections in early
2009? He and the galvanized Democrat-led Congress have promised to
withdraw troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office–a step
likely to diminish what few steps the United States has taken to ease
the refugee problem.
Casualty numbers in Iraq will be much lower in 2008 than in past
years, but recent violence in Mosul, where several dozen Christians
have been killed in the last two months and militants have bombed
homes belonging to Christians, demonstrates how quickly militants
can reignite a terror campaign. For example, on Nov. 12 militants
shot and killed a woman waiting for a bus to go to work, then went
to her home, where they shot and killed her sister and stabbed her
mother. The attackers then set off a bomb that destroyed the house
and wounded three policemen who had arrived to investigate.
Syrian church leaders say these and other similar episodes are
propelling newly displaced families across the border into Syria
this month. "At least 120-150 families have arrived to our different
churches over the last couple of weeks, adding to our lists," wrote
one in a Nov. 15 email. "Most of these families arrived with their
hand bags and nothing else in their hands. It is a pitiful situation,
and we feel handicapped and paralyzed and not able to help them."
In 2007 only 1,600 Iraqis of the millions at risk received asylum to
enter the United States: Humanitarian groups charged that the United
States is not doing enough to resolve a refugee crisis it helped to
create. In 2008 the number is set to be far larger–over 12,000–after
Congress and the U.S. Departments of State and Homeland Security
agreed to accept additional cases. But the higher number still helps
only a portion of those that under the 1951 Geneva Convention for
granting permanent asylum to refugees can demonstrate "a well-founded
fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality,
membership of a particular social group or political opinion."
Lacking approval for resettlement, Iraqis have only temporary status
in neighboring countries, little opportunity for finding work to
make a living, little money to pay for housing and other necessities,
and little hope for their future. That plight seems to fall hardest
on Christians and other minorities, who in addition to the day-to-day
hardships face discrimination and persecution in the wider Middle East.
The problem is most evident in Syria, where approximately 350,000
Iraqi Christians out of over 1.2 million total Iraqi refugees
currently live. The Syrian border is only 80 miles from Mosul,
Iraq’s third-largest city with at one time a sizeable Christian
population. Christians in recent decades made up about 4 percent of
Iraq’s general population, but according to church leaders in Syria
they make up over 30 percent of its Iraqi refugee population.
That’s not reflected in the official tally of the UN High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR), where 14 percent of active Iraqi refugee cases
across five countries are listed as Christians while over three-fourths
are Muslims. Church leaders in Syria contend that locally hired UNHCR
case officers, who are predominantly Muslim, routinely reject Christian
applicants. UN officials deny that, but case officers who routinely
refer Muslim applicants to Muslim help groups do not give Christian
applicants church-based contacts. Case officers also do not tell
Christians that if they have relatives living in the United States
they may apply directly to the U.S. embassy for asylum. Even most
church leaders in Syria, when asked, were not aware of that provision.
The Syrian government permits Iraqi passport holders to enter
with a visa but does not allow them to hold jobs that could go
to Syrians. Syria has no public assistance available for health
care, schooling, or the legal services needed to file for refugee
status. Syria also will not accept Iraqis as permanent residents. "We
are suffering too much and there is no help," said Raad Noori Yousif
from Mosul. He and his family came to Syria over a year ago after his
19-year-old son was kidnapped and released. He sold his home to pay
$20,000 in ransom, but a week later militants demanded more money. In
Syria, Yousif said, "we get help from the UN or from churches, but
not much."
In Damascus Iraqis have taken over parts of Jaramana, an urban enclave
close to Old City walls where the apostle Paul was lowered in a basket
to escape Jews who wanted to kill him. Then, the dusty streets were
wide enough only for two camels to pass; today, five-story buildings
closely line those same streets, and cars jockey to squeeze by one
another. On one corner an Iraqi changes money for evening shoppers,
quickly folding thick wads of Iraqi dinars and Syrian pounds into
baggy pants pockets. Behind him another Iraqi tosses dough for flat
bread into the air, crouching then throwing it inside his street-front
bakery.
It’s all part of the informal economy springing up among the refugees:
They barter with one another as money-changers, barbers, or bakers
but cannot integrate their trades into Syrian communities. In that
sense it’s fitting that the nearly 500,000 Iraqis who pack the close
streets of Jaramana have renamed the area Fallujah Place. In crowded
walk-up apartments of not more than two bedrooms along what’s now
called Tikrit Street, extended families of a dozen or more make
temporary homes and subsistence livings however they can.
Water comes only once a week in this part of Jaramana, according
to Abu Zaid, who arrived in the city 14 months ago and used to own
a supermarket in Baghdad. The water supply, always short in late
summer, is tapped out by the bulging refugee population. Zaid says
some Muslim families have returned to Baghdad, but Christian Iraqis
aren’t going back; in fact, many are still leaving. Zaid, his wife,
and youngest son drove to the Syrian border after militants killed
an older son and kidnapped his brother-in-law. The family eventually
paid a $30,000 ransom for the brother-in-law’s release.
Zaid’s extended family remains far-flung: Some family members are
in northern Iraq, and two of Zaid’s brothers have resettled, one in
Detroit and one in Canada. Through Lutheran Social Services, a private
refugee resettlement agency that contracts with the U.S. government,
Zaid hopes to emigrate, but he believes it will take "at least
two years."
In the meantime, most Iraqi refugees say they have been welcomed at
existing churches or have formed small fellowships on their own. At
least one Baptist church has sprung up in Jaramana: A pastor from
Baghdad, himself a refugee, leads in worship about 125 Iraqis who
meet in a basement on Sunday evenings.
Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city at 3 million residents, is one of
the oldest inhabited cities in the world. In 1915 it became a sanctuary
for Armenians escaping the genocide carried out by the Ottoman Turks:
Many Armenians walked across the mountains of southeastern Turkey to
avoid the massacres, arriving in Aleppo naked and penniless, and the
Armenian population in Aleppo between the world wars swelled from
about 300 families to over 400,000. The massacres also drove other
Christian communities from Turkey to Aleppo.
With the rise of Arab nationalism following World War II, and
later radical Islam, many Armenians moved east to Soviet Armenia
(now independent) and west to the United States. Today more than
100,000 Armenians live in Los Angeles County; 60,000 live in Aleppo. A
generation ago one-quarter of Aleppo was Christian, but today it is
less than 10 percent. Thousands of Iraqi Christians taking refuge
in Aleppo have helped those sagging numbers, but there are "more
conflict-displaced people in the region than at any time since the
Palestinian exodus in 1948," said Rasek Siriani of the Middle East
Council of Churches.
At Aleppo’s Armenian Orthodox church Father Dativ Michaelian and his
team are working with over 200 Iraqi Christian families. Michaelian
says about 50 families in the last year have emigrated: 46 to America,
four to Armenia, none to Iraq. His church is providing school fees
for 2,000 Iraqi children (including some Muslims), assisting with
housing and other necessities, and taking part in a once-a-month food
distribution to refugee families. Michaelian’s grandparents fled
Turkey for Aleppo: "We know what it means to leave everything. We
take the responsibility. It is not something new to accept refugees
and take care of them."
Most of the families from Iraq that attend Armenian churches are
from Baghdad or Mosul. Parsegh Setrak, his wife and three children,
along with his brother and his family, are Mosul residents who came to
Aleppo in 2006 after working with U.S. contractor Bechtel for three
years. Setrak, 54, received threats against his family by letter. He
said militants tried to kidnap his daughter, now 19, on her way to
school, and later followed her home: "Many girls were being kidnapped
and killed from school because the girls are Christians."
When Bechtel closed Setrak’s construction project after several
bombings, Setrak decided it was time to leave. The family sold
everything it had in Iraq and now lives off those proceeds, paying
$330 a month for a fourth-floor apartment in a building where the
elevator only goes to the second floor. Setrak said he assumed he and
his family could emigrate to America because of his involvement with
a U.S. contractor (technically he is right; a Department of Homeland
Security fact sheet says that Iraqis who worked for a U.S. contractor
"can apply directly without a UNHCR referral"–but only in Jordan,
Egypt, and Iraq). Two years after applying for immigrant status with
UNHCR his family has heard nothing and was turned away from applying
at the U.S. embassy.
"Here life has stopped," Setrak told me–and Michaelian interrupted,
"We as Middle Easterners don’t want Christian churches to
empty." Setrak’s 21-year-old son Masis quickly replied, "But we want
to live, too." Later Michaelian concluded, "The bridges are broken
to go back to Iraq, especially for the Christian."
For now the Iraqis have nearly doubled the size of some worship
services, Michaelian says. He welcomes the change and recognizes that
the Iraqis have questions and special needs, so once a week he holds
a meeting just for them. It includes a time for devotions or Bible
study and for questions about medical care, schooling, and other
matters. Usually about 125 Iraqis show up for the Wednesday night
gatherings, which often become a time to recount tragic experiences.
The refugees at the meetings are from as far away as Basra in southern
Iraq, from Baghdad, and from the predominantly Christian towns in the
north. "You try to talk about this as a subject, but when your life is
the subject, it’s very scary," said a refugee from Mosul. The refugee
says his father received multiple letters, one containing a bullet,
threatening to kill his two sons, both in their 20s. At one point
the family paid protection money to militants to keep the sons from
being taken, and also borrowed $50,000 to pay ransom after militants
kidnapped an uncle.
Historic churches in Aleppo–Armenian Orthodox, Armenian Catholic,
Syrian Orthodox, Syrian Catholic, Chaldean, Baptist–have formally
banded together to share responsibility for the Christian refugees. The
U.K.-based Barnabas Fund provides a monthly stipend for the Iraqis,
underwriting church-based food distributions, medical care, and
other services. Barnabas also is working with churches to purchase
land in Aleppo to build additional housing for Iraqis. Caritas, the
Catholic charity based in Rome, provided funds for Iraqi families via
the Catholic churches in Aleppo, but the support ended in August. No
other international charity organizations that typically show up in
refugee camps are at work in Syria with the Iraqis.
"George" is a lay leader in the Syrian Orthodox church who helps
to distribute monthly food rations and to run a medical clinic for
Iraqis. On a balmy Thursday night in October he and a team of workers
gather in the lower offices of the church while Iraqi families line
up outside in a walled courtyard, passports and ration cards in
hand. Everyone needs documents to receive a cash stipend and a black
plastic bag containing rice or bulgar, oil, tea or milk powder, and
frozen meat. On this particular night school children also received
backpacks donated by Barnabas Fund: Young families get diapers and
formula, and new arrivals receive a room fan.
Four hours after the distribution begins George and other church
workers have given away nearly 180,000 Syrian pounds ($4,000) and
about 110 food ration bags. It’s too late to finish: Workers tell
the remaining Iraqis to come back on Saturday.
George has been helping Iraqi families for over 10 years, starting
after the first Gulf War. He says the UN and many private relief
groups helped refugees then but have done comparatively little this
time; meanwhile, rents have gone up "and food prices have doubled
this year. We help them but we don’t know how long we will be able to."
George makes regular visits to Iraqi families. One routine stop is with
Nisreen, a widow whose husband died from injuries in the Iran-Iraq
war. Mosul terrorists after Sunday evening services on June 3, 2007,
murdered her 24-year-old son and sole financial support, church deacon
Besman Yousef, along with a Chaldean priest and two other deacons. She
grieved the traditional 40 days, she said, then left for Syria. She
has relatives in Sweden and hopes to move there, but like many Iraqis
who register with UNHCR in Syria, she waited six months for her first
interview with the agency and since that time, now nine months later,
has heard nothing else about her request for asylum.
George also visits Raad Ghanem Youssef, who came to Aleppo with what
remained of his family three months ago after his son and daughter
were kidnapped: Terrorists already had killed his brother and another
son. "We are looking for leaving Iraq and Syria for good, and going
to Europe or America," Youssef told me: "We have applied to the UN
and have had two interviews, but we count only on God."
Youssef has tried unsuccessfully to get medical treatment for his
son, who has memory lapses and shows signs of post-traumatic stress
disorder following his kidnapping. Like many heads of families,
Youssef keeps copies of the family’s refugee documents in a plastic
Ziploc bag tucked inside his shirt–ready at a moment’s notice should
there be a sudden break in his case.
Despite the trauma and well-founded fear for families like Youssef’s,
the numbers are against their being accepted for emigration to the
United States. And so is U.S. policy.
Even a decade after the Vietnam War ended, the United States
accepted refugees from Indochina at a rate of about 14,000 per month,
according to refugee expert Winter, who at that time worked on refugee
resettlement at the State Department. Back then the United States
interviewed refugees and processed asylum cases directly, taking into
account U.S. interests as well as adherence to the Geneva Conventions
on refugees. Now contact with refugees seeking asylum in the United
States is likely managed by UNHCR, and because the agency employs case
officers from the region, asylum cases are more likely to be determined
based on local conditions–or bias–than U.S. interests. Officers do
not have to say no to applicants; they simply do not process their
applications. "This international approach makes refugee resettlement
the last option," Winter says. "In other words, it is supposed to
not happen."
For all the hardships, in many ways that is just fine with longstanding
church leaders in Syria. They see dwindling church populations in
Syria, Lebanon, and now Iraq, and know they are fighting for the
survival of Christian orthodoxy in the Middle East. Their dilemma: They
want to help Iraqi refugees, just not all the way to Europe or America.
"It is very important for us as oriental churches to have this presence
in the lands of revelation of our faith, for ourselves and for other
Christians," said Antoine Odo, president of the Chaldean bishops of
Syria. "We as churches have the experience of living with Islam. It
will be very negative if we go abroad, and if we no longer have the
presence of Christianity with Muslims. It is important to give Islam
the opportunity to live with another religion."
Odo predicts that when the Iraqi refugee crisis subsides, 70 percent
of those living in Syria will have emigrated to other countries, 15
percent will remain in Syria, and 15 percent will go back to Iraq,
where Odo traces his own family history to the town of al-Qosh,
once the ancient Jewish town of the prophet Nahum, later a Christian
village, in a region now majority Sunni Muslim and Kurdish. "Even the
Muslims need historical references. Even if they are in opposition,
Christians represent something that comes before them," he said.
But a return to Iraq requires more protection from remaining militant
groups, something dependent on continued U.S. military presence
and a commitment to rebuilding broken communities. As Winter says,
"No one wants to see Christian communities out of Iraq but to ask
families to stay, that’s more difficult."
Iraqi refugees to the US
The United States asks nearly all Iraqi refugees to first apply through
the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), an agency that may
reject a refugee application or refer it to the U.S. departments of
state and homeland security. But as this graph shows, of a cumulative
total of over 34,000 cases referred by UNHCR to U.S. authorities–out
of over 2 million refugees–only slightly more than 15,000 have been
granted asylum to live in the United States–more than 12,000 coming
in fiscal year 2008 alone.