‘Convert, leave, or die:’ Iraqi Christians and the dream to return to Mosul

[TomSea]

‘Convert, leave, or die:’ Iraqi Christians and the dream to return to Mosul

By Sonia Farid
Special to Al Arabiya English Sunday, 26 March 2017

In the summer of 2014, Mosul was for the first time in its history almost totally emptied of Christian civilians. More than 200,000 of Iraqi Christians, who make up the fourth largest indigenous Christian population in the Middle East, were forced to flee the city following invasion by ISIS whose leaders gave them the choice to convert, leave, or die then seized their houses and burnt their churches. It was only recently that the Christians of Iraq started harboring hopes of returning to their homes as Iraqi forces managed to reclaim the city, which was home to one of the world’s most ancient Christian communities.

Reverend Daniel al-Khari, a Chaldean priest who oversees a Christian refugee camp in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan where large numbers of Christians fled, argued that ISIS’s departure from Mosul makes it possible to return, yet not safe. According to him, it is not about ISIS’s physical presence as much the culture the group managed to nurture in the city. “We can go back but it is a question of safety. We are dealing with a new generation bred by ISIS - they have a radical anti-Christian viewpoint and so it would be really hard to go back,” he said, arguing that with the spread of fanaticism he doubts that Muslim and Christian communities can co-exist. Al-Khari particularly referred to ISIS’s recruitment and radicalization of children, who came to be labeled “caliphate cubs” and were instructed to walk around the city armed with knives and guns. “It would be very hard for children here and children in Mosul to get together,” he added. “We really need to work with the children in Mosul to change what ISIS has implanted there.”

Continued: https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2017/03/26/Iraqi-Christians-and-the-dream-to-return-to-Mosul.html