Iraqis’ Faith Grows as Churches Close

It’s great to know that years of persecution and not even this virus, can stop the work of God in Iraq.

03/30/2020 Washington D.C. (International Christian Concern) – Chaos has unfolded throughout every decade of Iraq’s recent history. Today, a virus keeps the country closed, leaving the vulnerable unable to access basic resources. The vulnerable include those displaced by ISIS, Islamic extremists whose genocide against religious minorities sowed chaos across Iraq. The genocide was foreshadowed by a massive bombing against a church a few years prior. But even before this, chaos was still unfolding. The early 2000s were plagued by militia violence, prompting one of the first waves of Christian immigration from Iraq.

For Iraqi Christians, chaos and uncertainty have always defined life. Today’s uncertainty is different. Rather than fleeing their homes, Christians are staying home and reflecting on the spiritual lessons they have learned throughout years of persecution.

Sarah is a young woman living in Baghdad, active in her church, and musically gifted. She has watched how decades of persecution have impacted the Christian community. “Churches in Iraq—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestants—were always there in every crisis passed, since forever,” she observes. Now again, the country is in a crisis. This time, however, the churches are closed. For Sarah, that is not necessarily bad. “Personally, the current crisis improved my spiritual life. God is my shelter, where I can run to whenever needed.” 

Even while the Christian population in Iraq has shrunk, the number of Muslims converting to Christianity has grown. For many, it was watching the persecution of Christians that served as a witness. When they converted, they faced persecution from their families that left many homeless, jobless, and with nowhere to go. Yet, their faith has only grown, including during this current crisis, which has further isolated them from society.

“I am leading a great group of believers who came to Christ and changed their religion,” says one pastor. “This is only another challenge that has been added to their many challenges. I am encouraged to be with them; they have no fear. Sometimes I encourage them. Then I realized that I am encouraged by them and by their faith.” 

Even so, several Christians find this current situation harder for their faith. In every crisis of persecution, the church was open and present. For context, Sarah explains that “after 2003, the churches in Iraq suffered persecution, especially in between 2005 – 2011. The bombing of a church during Sunday prayer by suicide belts in 2010 was the last maybe… today, we can see how the church rebuilt, and people can have prayers there once again.” 

And yet now, because of a virus, the churches are closed for the first time. For so many Christians, church is their community. Societal discrimination has left them with little else. Thus the inability to pray in church during a time of hardship sits unwell among the hearts of some. “I’ve attended the evangelical church since 20004,” says one woman. “I can confirm that the spiritual level was always better during crises and hard times. I am against closing the churches and canceling services.” 

It can be frustrating to watch churches close for something invisible, given the history of the churches staying open even in times of violence. It helps, however, to think of the situation in a different way. “We’ve been distributing Bibles until the government’s statement about the curfew,” says a Christian leader. “We had to close the office as everybody else. Persecution over the history had a positive impact on Christians’ faith. This time may be the persecution didn’t come by a physical enemy, it is like a virus. I believe God gives us protection.” 

“We need to be real facing our fear. This time, our faith decides who we are. I pray we stay close to God all the time, not only the hard times,” adds another.

It is, at least, an opportunity for reflection. An opportunity that, because of the years of chaos faced by Iraq, has been difficult to grasp. As one convert says, “When I came to know Christ many years ago, I was growing on my faith through attending services and listening to the word of God. But due to life and business, I couldn’t read and listen to the word of God. This epidemic helped me to go back. Even I am worried about the future of this country, but I believe in the blood of Christ(Read more).

Open Doors: Field Report Webinar

So I just got off a webinar which was by Open Doors, an organization dedicated to keeping a watch on our Persecuted Brethren everywhere. This webinar was to be a field report on what was happening with our brethren in Christ located in the Middle East, Central Asia, Iran and Iraq. At first, the reporter (his name is William), told the audience about his story about working in areas like the Middle East where persecution is high. He also went to what life is like for our brethren in Christ living those areas as of today. He mentioned government-funded churches where they are forbidden from evangelizing people of other faiths (and if they do evangelize they do it very secretly by sending someone who is seeking to a side-door of sorts). He also mentioned underground churches where people are more open to doing evangelism (albeit cautiously), but are forbidden by the government. Then lastly, there were many questions that were answered by William and the CEO David.

I took many things from this webinar:
1. God’s Providence- William mentioned how God told him to leave Iraq after living there for 16 years and then when He wanted him to return, the doors were open and he was provided with what he needed (and at times, what he wanted). When God wants you somewhere He will open the doors for you.

2. God’s Will- Something the field reporter said was that there is no safer place to be than the will of God. This is pretty much a no-brainer. When one is doing the will of God, a hedge of protection usually (but not always) follows and many people have been protected while witnessing to others at the risk of their lives. And if one gets killed, no bother, they’ll be with the Savior forever.

3. The benefits of persecution-
    A. The field reporter mentioned that some people have been blessed by having to flee as a result of persecution. He mentioned on girl who was a nominal Christian with life that consisted of coming to church, now after having to flee due to her faith in Christ, she now lives a Christian life 24/7. Persecution can cause people to become more devoted to following the living Savior beforehand.
    B.  The field reporter also mentioned how virtually everyone facing heavy persecution has lots of PTSD. As a result they have to lean on and help each other deal with the PTSD. Persecution can drive  people to help each other and draw each other close. It also can cause people to love each other more deeply.


In the end, the field reporter said that what our persecuted brethren in Christ need more than anything else was to experience God. It would help them get through th daily hell they endure. I pray that this happens for them.

This was an amazing Webinar. I learned much and got some more tips on how to help my persecuted brethren in Christ.

Who Will Put An End To The Christian Killing Fields?

”Please, the world needs to know: We are captives, we don’t have water or electricity here in Aleppo but it is nothing compared to the fear we have toward the Islamists. Why is no one doing anything to save us?”
A young Assyrian Christian woman in Aleppo, Syria, spoke these words to me during a phone call a few days ago. She is stuck in the country with her three small children.
In wake of the ISIS invasion of Iraq, reports (long overdue) are emerging about the persecution of Christians and other minorities in the country. Yet ISIS is committing the same atrocities against non-Muslims in Syria, too.
Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, has been emptied of almost all Christians. Ten days ago, ISIS – who now call themselves the Islamic State (IS) – distributed fliers to Christians that read: “Convert, Pay Jizya, Leave or Die.”
The Christians fled in droves before the Saturday deadline for their decision.
The scant few who remained were weak, old or injured and could not flee. A man who lost his leg in a bombing a couple of days prior to the deadline was forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint, according to his relatives.

Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, also has been nearly emptied of Assyrians, Armenians and other non-Muslims.

These are the words spoken to me by the father of the three children stuck with their mother in another phone call: "It’s happening right in front of their eyes and no one is lifting a finger to stop it. Please be our voice, we beg you -- make them do something to save us from being slaughtered(Keep reading for more).”

Iraqi Christians Suffering Injustice and Marginalization

 

6/25/2013 Iraq (Christian Post) - Dr. Yousef Francis Matta Eklimis, a member of the National Assembly of Unified Christians List, has spoke out against the discrimination and injustice that Christians in Iraq are suffering.
"Iraqi Christians have suffered much injustice and marginalization. Even their rights are being ignored in the new constitution," Eklimis told Mideast Christian News.
"We aim to get our rights by initiating article 125 of the constitution, which is based on self-management of Christian areas," Eklimis explained.
Eklimis stated that his list seeks unity, maintenance of privacy and providing of services.
"We will seek to unite Christians in Iraq," he noted, "By maintaining communication with concerned authorities to complete the establishment of the University of Hamdania, as well as educating people on peaceful coexistence, particularly in Christian areas, while maintaining the privacy of these areas and halting any attempts to change the demographics of them. In addition to this, various projects for the development of Christian areas in Iraq, generally, and in Nineveh in particular will be carried out."
He also note the need for reducing the migration of Christians out of the country(source).

Attacks against Christians in Iraq ongoing

This is a nightmare to me.

4/24/2013 Iraq (Christian Today) – Islamist extremists want Iraq to be a "Muslim only" country. As a result, Christians in Iraq remain continuous targets of violent attacks. Each month Open Doors field workers receive sad phone calls and emails of Christian acquaintances who report attacks against the Christians near them. While most of them are part of the general violence, such as bomb attacks and mortar fire which intensified during provincial elections last Saturday, a part of the violence can be labelled as specifically targeted against Christians.

"If these attacks take place in a Christian neighbourhood or a Christian village, you can assume they are targeted, especially against the Christian population of the neighbourhoods and villages," said an Open Doors field worker.

"Since the fall of Saddam Hussein 10 years ago, an estimated 1,000 Christians have been killed, a relatively high number compared with percentages killed from other groups in Iraqi society."

A Christian in Mosul was the target of two attacks in one week last March. After the first bomb exploded in his house on a Wednesday, a second one was thrown over his fence on Sunday. The Christian saw two young men running away. The second bomb, wrapped in a black bag and a women's t-shirt, was deactivated by a military engineering team(Source).

Christians in Iraq celebrate Christmas in Kurdistan

12/25/2012 Iraq (RFI) – Iraq’s Kurdistan Region is home to one of the world's oldest Christian communities. In the last decade it has also welcomed Christians from the rest of Iraq who were persecuted for their religious beliefs. Christmas in Kurdistan takes on a special meaning for Christians knowing that not all their fellow citizens are free to celebrate the holiday.

You might think that one place you could avoid Christmas music in mid-December would be Iraq. But driving through Erbil, capital of the country’s Kurdistan Region, on a wet December afternoon, the local Babylon FM radio station has a full festive play list. That’s because Kurdistan is very different from the rest of the country as many Iraqi Christian refugees have discovered in recent years.

Since the 2003 Iraq war, the Kurdistan Region has offered a safe haven to Christians fleeing religious persecution in Baghdad, Mosul, Basra and other Southern Iraqi cities. The small suburb of Ainkawa lies on the edge of the region’s capital Erbil and about 90% of its 40,000 strong population is Christian, most of them Assyrians or Chaldeon Catholics.

Ninos Mishu is a priest at the Assyrian Church of the East, St John Baptism Church, in Ainkawa, Erbil.
“We have [on] 24th, Monday, we have a prayer beginning at 7.30 for celebration for  coming of Jesus. And at morning 7.30, Tuesday, 25 December, we have a holy mass.”

“We are free here in Kurdistan to use our church here to pray, to make a holy mass. We are so safe here. We are always celebrating our prayers or holy mass. And there is no problems recorded until now. Thanks for God, and for our government that love the Christian people. And our neighbors, the Muslims, they are always giving their greetings for us, in Christmas or Easter(Source).”

Persecution of Iraqi Christians Likely to Intensify Amid Christmas Season

12/7/2011 Iraq (Christian Post) – The life of Iraqi Christians has not been easy. Since a siege directed against Christians in Baghdad in October 2010 killed 52 people, the situation of the followers of Christ in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation has grown worse. About 500,000 Christians remain in Iraq, down from an estimated 800,000 to 1.4 million in 2003, according to a report by Minority Rights Group International, a research body. Persecution makes the Christian community smaller each year, with churches as well as households being targeted and causing worshippers to flee.

The Christmas holiday season has rarely been a happy one for Christians in the Middle East, where they are often not allowed to raise church buildings and house churches often experience raids and harassment. Experts on the region say the Christmas season is a particularly dangerous period for the Christian minority, when numerous acts of violence and vandalism take place. The most recent of such attacks in Iraq occurred on Dec. 2, when at least 25 people, many of them Christian, were wounded in an attack carried out by a group of Kurds in the Dohuk Governate in the north of the country.

Dozens of young Kurds – men who reportedly had been "instigated" by Muslim clerics – attacked several small businesses in Zakho, a city that at various times served as a checkpoint on the border with Turkey, according to a CNN report. The news network claims the attackers were targeting "a number of tourist facilities, especially facilities owned by ... Christians and Yazidis." (Yazidis are one of Iraq's smallest religious minorities, their beliefs draw from Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism.)

A local Kurdish leader reportedly said that authorities made "a major effort" to prevent the "acts of sabotage, but they could not." Several police officers were among those wounded.

"I denounce these inhumane and illegal acts, and I call on the people of Kurdistan to respect the national, religious and sectarian coexistence and take it as a basic goal for them to live together peacefully," Massoud Barzani, the president of the Iraq's Kurdistan autonomous region, told CNN at the time. The Wall Street Journal reported on the situation of Christians from Iraq in a Monday feature, calling the public's attention to another factor that is stirring the situation in the region – the democratic uprisings spreading across the Middle East.

“With the Arab Spring now bringing political turbulence to many other countries in the region, Christians throughout the Middle East are worried that what happened in Iraq may be a harbinger of misfortune to come in their own communities. While many remain supporters of the uprisings, others fear that the toppling of their autocratic rulers could uncork sectarian violence against Christians and other minority groups in their own nations," the WSJ's Sam Dagher wrote.

Iraqi Christians are caught amidst political brawls between the majority Shiite Muslims, the Sunni Muslims and the Kurds (in the north) who are predominantly Muslim, experts say. At least 54 Iraqi churches have been bombed and at least 905 Christians killed in various acts of violence since the U.S. invasion toppled Hussein in 2003, WSJ reported(Source).

A beacon of hope for Iraq Christians

10/4/2011 Iraq (Vatican Radio) – In the last decade, the Christian population in Iraq has plummeted from 800,000 to an estimated 150,000. Many have fled their homes and even the country to escape attacks and religious intolerance. But one area in Northern Iraq is seeing an influx of Christians. The town of Ankawa, a suburb of the Kurdish capital Erbil has seen an increase from over 8 thousand in the mid 1990’s to more than 25 thousand today.

“There are two main reasons (for this influx), one is this is the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq where the safety and general security is thought to be that much better than elsewhere in Iraq. That’s the first reason; the second reason is because that particular suburb… is already quite well populated with Christians,” says Senior Press Officer for Aid to the Church in Need, John Pontifex(Source).

Church Bombing In Kirkuk

8/13/2011 Iraq (VOA) – A car bomb was recently detonated outside a church in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk injuring at least nineteen people, including a priest.  More than 40 homes were damaged by the blast.

This latest attack on a church is part of a pattern of stepped up violence by terrorists against Iraq's minority Christian population. An attack on a Christian church in Baghdad on October 31st, 2010, left 58 worshippers dead, including two priests.  It was one of the worst in a spate of attacks that have targeted Iraqi Christians and have left scores dead.

After the attack on the Syrian-Catholic church in Kirkuk, the Syrian-Catholic Archbishop, Yohanna Petros Mouche, has asked the Iraqi government to guarantee better security in the country. Speaking about the alleged terrorist he explained, that the terrorist was "perhaps an Iraqi by passport, but certainly not in his heart, because a true Iraqi does not eat the flesh of his brother." He called on Iraqi religious leaders to "strongly denounce the repulsive crime, which damages the reputation of Islam and the dignity of Iraq."

The Archbishop went on to say that "I hope that all what is happening in Iraq today, will only serve to
consolidate the firmness of faith of our Christians and their solidarity with one another" and added, "No matter how big the evil may be, it can’t shake faithful hearts. Brave souls stay firm."

Iraqi Christians Targeted in Church Bombing

I'm glad to hear that we still have brothers and sisters in Christ in Iraq. I thank them for the backbone they displayed as seen in this article and I pray that they will preach the gospel to the Muslims in Iraq!!!

8/2/2011 Iraq (AP) – A car bomb outside a Christian church wounded 23 people Tuesday as security forces found and disabled vehicles packed with explosives outside two other churches in northern Iraq.

The bombing and the two averted attacks in the northern city of Kirkuk signal continued violence against Iraqi Christians, nearly 1 million of whom have fled since the war began in 2003.

"The terrorists want to make us flee Iraq, but they will fail," said the Rev. Haithem Akram, the priest of one of the churches that was targeted.

"We are staying in our country. The Iraqi Christians are easy targets because they do not have militias to protect them. The terrorists want to terrorize us, but they will fail," he added.
…
Following the blast at the Syrian Catholic church, police discovered two more car bombs parked outside the Christian Anglican church and the Mar Gourgis church, both in downtown Kirkuk(Source).

Iraq’s first new church since 2003 US invasion opens

I pray that the Lord Jesus will keep this new church from Muslim attacks.

7/10/2011 Iraq (AFP) – Iraq’s first new church since the 2003 US-led invasion opened in a poor Christian neighborhood of the northern city of Kirkuk, the region’s Chaldean archbishop told AFP. The inauguration of Mar Bulos (Saint Paul’s) church in the multi-ethnic and multi-religious city comes despite the sharp fall in the number of Christians in Iraq because of attacks and threats by Al Qaeda.

In an opening ceremony last Thursday, Louis Sako, the Chaldean Archbishop of the northern province of Sulaimaniyah and Kirkuk (also the name of the provincial capital) said that Christians and Muslims “need each other.”

“We need each other, we cannot isolate ourselves and live alone,” he told a congregation of about 300.
“Isolation is a slow death, so we have hope for a joint life as Christians and Muslims, to have a righteous country, and a city full of security, stability and dignity.” “This is considered as the first new church in Iraq since 2003,” Archbishop Sako said.

The number of Iraqi Christians has dwindled to about 400,000 from an estimated figure of between 800,000 and 1.2 million before the 2003 invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. Most of them live in Baghdad, Kirkuk, the area surrounding the northern city of Mosul and parts of the autonomous Kurdistan region in the north of Iraq.

On October 31, a group of Al Qaeda commandos stormed a Syriac Catholic church in Baghdad, with the ensuing siege killing 44 worshippers, two priests and seven Iraqi security force officers. It was the worst attack against Iraq’s Christian community since 2003, and countless members of the minority have since fled the country. The new Kirkuk church serves a housing community of about 200 Christian families who fled to Kirkuk and nearby regions from other parts of the country, Archbishop Sako said. (Source)

A True Resurrection in Iraq

5/17/2011 Iraq (Guardian) – The savage attack on Christians worshipping at Our Lady of Salvation Chaldean Catholic church in Baghdad drew the world’s attention to the violence against Christians and other minorities, such as the Mandaeans and the Yazidis, which has become almost routine in Iraq since the “troubles” began. Priests and bishops have been kidnapped and brutally murdered; Christian schools, businesses and homes have been targeted; hundreds have been killed or injured; and hundreds of thousands have fled to Syria, Jordan, Turkey and – the lucky ones – to the west.

Other religious minorities have not fared any better.  Everyone in Iraq seems to live in deadly danger, but religious minorities are much more exposed as they do not have militias of their own to protect them. At the moment, however, there is a lull in the violence and this must, therefore, be a time to take stock and think about the future.  It would not be true to say that there is no fear, but the Christian community has not given up on its commitment to serve all the people of Iraq in the name of the gospel it professes. Just two examples will show what I mean: a few years ago St George’s Anglican church in the heart of Baghdad was derelict, abandoned because it lay in a dangerous area. That was until Andrew White (“the vicar of Baghdad”) arrived.

At Coventry cathedral he had become involved in the work of relief and reconciliation in the Middle East and now he set about not only rehabilitating St George’s, but making it a premier location for the delivery of essential services to Iraqis – regardless of religion. 

Every day of the week St George’s hums with activity: the clinic is full to capacity with patients receiving primary medical care that the hard-pressed state hospitals are unable to provide. Most are Muslim, and most of the staff are Christian but it seems not to matter a whit. Unemployed and disabled people can collect a weekly ration that just about enables them to survive. There is a small school for children, and, in the desert of war, a bookshop. Most of all, there are people to listen, to give advice, to help with food, clothing and shelter. 

It should not surprise us that this work is rooted in prayer, sacrifice and service. So many of those who need help are women, and the strong mothers’ union works all hours of the day to minister to the needs of these women, many of whom have lost their menfolk in the conflict.  …  Across the Tigris, and with strong links to St George’s, is another example of resurrection in Iraq. It is the House of Love, run by Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity. The sisters are from India and Bangladesh, and they have rescued, sometimes from the streets, severely disabled children who have been abandoned by their parents.

They are a vivid reminder of Saddam Hussein’s atrocities against his own people. Many of the disabilities have undoubtedly been caused by the dictator’s use of chemical and other prohibited weapons against dissidents and minorities. It is most moving to see how the sisters and their helpers (some from the mothers’ union at St George’s) care for these young ones, many without arms and legs, and how the children respond to the love and friendship.

One of the things I would most like them to have is a computer that can be operated with the voice. It would transform their lives.  The Ba’ath party claimed to be the party of “national resurrection” but it brought only repression, fear and death. The Iraqi people deserve a more authentic resurrection. St George’s and the Sisters of Charity show us how it can be done. (Source) 

Iraq: young Christian abducted, tortured and beheaded

"Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown." 
-Jesus Christ, Revelation 2:10
5/16/2011 Iraq (AsiaNews) – An Iraqi Christian man was abducted, tortured and then beheaded. The victim was from Kirkuk, northern Iraq. Police found his body this morning. He had been kidnapped three days ago and the family had received a ransom request. However, negotiations for his release did not work out and so he was brutally murdered. For the archbishop of Kirkuk, his death is an “inhuman act” because it goes “against every human and religious principle”. Iraqi Christians have been living in a state of high tension since the killing of Osama Bin Laden, fearing possible revenge by local Muslim extremists.
Ashur Yacob Issa was 29 years old and had three children, a source in Kirkuk told AsiaNews. He was abducted three days ago for ransom. His kidnappers wanted US$ 100,000 to release him. However, negotiations with his family “did not work out”, a local Christian said. The incident came to a terrible end this morning, when police found the young man’s body, by the side of a bridge. The body showed “horrific marks of torture”, the source said. The head had been cut off and the eyes gauged out of their socket.

The crime sent a shockwave through the city, especially in its Christian community. although the victim was kidnapped in order to get a large sum of money, the death of Osama Bin Laden by the US on 2 May has raised the tension level in the Christian community. Since then in fact, it has been living in fear of possible reprisals by Muslim extremists. Speaking to AsiaNews, Mgr Louis Sako, archbishop of Kirkuk, condemned the murder of the young man, calling it an “inhuman act” that goes against “every human and religious principle”. 

“No man who believes in God and respects life can commit such acts,” the prelate said. (Source)
 

Bin Laden’s Death Inspires Mixed Responses in Iraq

5/3/2011 Iraq (The Wall Street Journal) – The killing of Osama bin Laden was greeted with a mixture of emotions in Iraq, a country which paid a heavy price in the U.S. response to the September 11 attacks.

There was relief, indifference and worries about retaliation. Iraq was invaded in 2003 by a U.S.-led coalition looking for weapons of mass destruction that were never found. Quickly, the conflict became a magnet for jihadists fighting foreign troops and all those seen by them as apostates or infidels including the country’s newly-empowered Shiite majority and the minority Christian community.

Kidnappings, beheadings and bombings of Shiite mosques and shrines and Christian churches became the hallmarks of al Qaeda’s affiliates in Iraq in attacks that killed thousands and pushed the country to the brink of civil war. Although al Qaeda in Iraq has been significantly weakened by the death and capture of several of its top leaders over the years, it remains a potent threat as Iraqis grapple with major challenges to their fragile democracy and hopes for a better future.

The Iraqi government, which has long blamed security failings on an alliance between al Qaeda elements and loyalists to former leader Saddam Hussein, welcomed the news hoping it would serve as a blow to extremism across the region.

Jasim al-Halbousi, the head of the provincial council in Anbar said bin Laden had played a role in “the devastation that plagued” the western Iraqi province which until a few years ago served as a safe haven for al Qaeda-linked militants embracing a fanatical Sunni Muslim ideology.

In Baghdad’s Kadhimiya district, home to one of several revered Shiite shrines around the country that were targets of numerous bloody attacks by al Qaeda-tied extremists since 2004, the news of bin Laden’s demise was greeted with relief.

“For sure I am happy, he killed innocent people and Muslims, I hope his death will weaken and finish off al Qaeda,” said Mohammed Abdel-Razaq, a pastry shop owner.

“Al Qaeda in Iraq may try to carry out one or two operations in the name of revenge for bin Laden,” said Hussein Kamal, who heads the Interior Ministry’s intelligence unit. (Source)

Iraqi Christian refugees wait for new lives in Istanbul’s ‘Little Baghdad’

I hope someone is back over in Iraq preaching the gospel to the non-muslims there:

4/29/2011 Iraq, Turkey (Hurriyet Daily News) – Sitting inside the Genç Kardeşler Café behind the bus station in Istanbul’s Kurtuluş area, it is easy to see why the “Son Durak” (Last Stop) neighborhood is also called “Little Baghdad.” The men playing cards and chatting at the cafe, smoking at the door or enjoying the sun outside predominantly speak Arabic, and like many of those who have made the journey from Iraq, their lives are characterized by waiting.

Kurtuluş has been a way station for some time for thousands of Iraqi refugees who fled violence and war at home, leaving behind their families, loved ones, jobs, houses and even their pasts. Here in this cosmopolitan Istanbul neighborhood, the men bide their time in this cafe, the women at home, while children and the young play or linger in the streets or attend courses organized for refugees by immigration organizations. What they all have in common is waiting.

Some have been waiting four or five years to receive an acceptance from a host country where they applied to immigrate. Others sail away to a new life after only a year. Iraqis choose to settle in Kurtuluş while they wait for a variety of reasons. The area is full of churches and home to the Catholic charity organization Caritas and the Chaldean Church, making it attractive to the many Christian migrants. It is close to immigrant organizations in Beyoğlu and populated by Greeks, Armenians and members of other migrant groups. The rents are also relatively low. But more than anything, the desire for “being together” leads many refugees to make this area their temporary home.

In Kurtuluş, they have peace and security – what they yearn for most for their country – but a sense that this feeling is temporary. Many yearn to leave behind both the violence in Iraq and their days of poverty in Istanbul and start over in a Western country.
…
Facts about refugees
* The number of Iraqi refugees in Turkey, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, is 6,590.
* Nearly 1,600 Iraqi Christian refugees live in Istanbul.