Last May 4th Jumana Trad visited the old school, placed next to the Nuestra Señora del Rosario church, in the Shiite neighborhood of Karrada, where the Sisters of the Sacred Heart shelter Christian families, victims of the ISIS threat, by dozens. These people had to flee Mosul, Batnaya, Talkif, Qaraqosh and Bartala.
The members of the family Alshio are Maher Matta and his wife, their three children (18, 14 and 4 years old), Ivana’s mother, Leyla Ayub and Maher’s sister, Nahira.
Jumana Trad had the chance to talk to the adults of the family. According to her words, their faces were marked by the print of a nightmare that started last year, in the month of August, in their small town placed in the Ninive plain, Bartella, where Chaldean Christians, Kurds, Muslims and Shabaks used to live together.
During those days, 2,000 families were suddenly forced to flee, joining more than 120,000 Iraqi Christians who were expelled from their home and town since the ISIS started with the establishment of their Caliphate between Syria and Iraq.
Ivana explains how, after the fall of Mosul two months earlier, the armed fighters of the DAESH (ISIS) advanced towards the Ninive plain, towards their town.
“I cannot recall the exact date, but we were fasting because of the Assuntion feast – west Christians fast for fifteen days in order to prepare this feast – that night we heard shots and explossions coming from a town next to us. Then we saw armed men from the DAESH surrounding ours”.
Ivana tells how the guards that were supposed to guarantee the security of people and the churches were commanded to leave, so the ISIS could enter freely.
“All my memories and my past vanished in a minute. Me and nine members of my family got into my husband’s car, and we fled with nothing but the clothes we had on“.
From Bartella they travelled 70 km away from their home to Ainkawa, a Christian suburb of the capital of Kurdistan, Erbil, but “life at that city was too expensive for a humble family like ours, and by the start of October, we decided to get in the car again and move”.
Afterwards they went to the Mar Mattai Monastery in the Mount Kaloub, 20 km away. They were welcomed and well treated by the monks, Ivana says, but after three days they had to leave one more time because the situation in the surroundings of the monastery was too unstable, there were too many armed fights, and the monks could not guarantee their safety.
They made the decision of heading to Baghdad, 450 km away, in spite of the risks. The journey started at dawn, at 6 o’clock in the morning, and twelve hours and a half later, they arrived at their destination.
“During the journey we went through different towns that seemed empty” comments Ivana.
Once in Baghdad, the Sisters of the Sacred Heart greeted them in the school next to the convent. From the very first day, they ensured shelter, food, and, above all, “a big affection” in words of Ivana.
Nine families lived together in the school. At the beginning, the cohabitation was complicated, but now they consider themselves as a family.
After that, and thanks to the help that the priest of the parish provided, they could take their three children to a public school in the neighborhood, after completing several administrative procedures. Despite being the only Christians in the class, their children were well received and they were offered educational support in order for them to be at the same level as their colleagues.
On the other hand, Ivana’s husband found a job as an ambulance driver in the San Rafael Hospital, which is managed by a religious community of Iraq. His sister, an Official of the State, got all the procedures correct, so she could receive her salary in Baghdad, also thanks to the joint work.
Ivana is grateful for the welcome of the citizens of Baghdad, as well as for their help, regardless if they are Muslims or Christians. She says “a Muslim taxi driver once offered me a journey for free, knowing that I was a Christian refugee”.
However, she knows that in the near future she may need to change her home. The Iraqi government supports the construction of caravans in a territory that the Asyrian archbishopric gave them. It is managed by a Christian political party in Iraq, and it aims to reallocate these displaced Christian families who live in Baghdad.
Each day Ivana finds more difficult to go back to her town. She has heard that all the houses were ransacked.
Maher, Ivana’s husband, has some doubts about the future of his family in Iraq and discussed with Jumana Trad the possibility of talking to the United Nations unit in Baghdad, where he worked for some years, so he could ask for a visa to migrate.
Unfortunately, Christians in Iraq feel each time more rejected and excluded by their neighbors, despite the efforts of their churches and the solidarity of some of their fellows.
FPSC is undertaking a campaign in order to help persecuted Christian families and refugees in Baghdad under the name #aShoutofEncouragement. This campaign, as a request from the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon, is gathering aid to alleviate this sudden situation of harsh precariousness. It is estimated that more than 5,000 families have found shelter in the capital of Iraq.