Brother Wissam drives his pickup truck to the convent where he lives alongside other Franciscan friars. He’s on his way back from Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, where he picked up his nephew Francius, 19, on vacation in Iraq on his own for the first time. “He’s my sister’s son,” Wissam explains. “He was born in London, where she went to live twenty years ago. Many from my generation left for Europe in those years, and many would like to do that today, because it’s never been easy to be a minority in this country.”
Like many Christian Iraqis, especially ordained ones, Wissam studied abroad for a few years, but never considered leaving his country permanently. The city he calls home is Qaraqosh (in Syriac) or Bakhdida (in Arabic), thirty kilometers from Mosul, the symbol, since 2014, of the Islamic State’s fury against Christians.
The Container Convent
“My brothers and I chose to come back after liberation, in 2017,” Wissam says. “But we wanted to settle in a quiet place, surrounded by greenery, not in the city. Not just for our own sake, but also to provide others with a place in which to enjoy peace, away from traffic, concrete, and the challenges of reconstruction.” The four friars who live here today have turned shipping containers once used to shelter refugees into accommodations for both themselves and anyone who wishes to be their guest, as well as shared recreational spaces, and a church with a wooden altar where they celebrate Mass every morning.
At the same time, a few dozen meters away, they have been building a “real” monastery out of bricks and concrete, over a large plot of land that they also use for cultivation, tending their olive trees, and raising cows and chickens. “Our aim is self-sufficiency,” Wissam says. “We eat the vegetables we grow and make cheese out of the milk from our cows. With some patience, it’ll only get better.”
An armed guard still stands at the complex’s entrance, 24/7. These are no longer members of the Nineveh Plain Protection Unit, a Christian militia that formed during the war with the Islamic State, but rather of the predominantly Shia militia that emerged around the same time, and now part of the Iraqi army. “Things are much more peaceful these days,” Wissam says. “This area is safe, and well-guarded. But a little extra security can’t hurt, in a country where everything can change in a matter of hours.”
The Community Museum
Over the last seven years, Qaraqosh has changed dramatically: roads have been repaved and churches rebuilt, often thanks to international aid. Many houses have also been restored, especially those that had been the most heavily damaged, and whose owners decided to invest the last of their savings in repair work. Some young people have reopened small shops, like Ahmed, who currently runs a chocolaterie with shiny windows and patio seating, or Martin, who has decided to uphold the city’s heritage by creating a small museum that keeps growing thanks to the help of the entire community.
“After liberation, we no longer recognized our own city,” Martin recalls. “Every corner had been looted or destroyed. Not only had we all lost our possessions, we had also lost evidence of our shared history. So, with the help of our surviving elders, we began to gather the personal stories and objects that people had managed to take with them, from things that reminded them of their family, to books, to sacred images, to agricultural tools. We needed a place where all these things could be catalogued, displayed, and offered for both citizens and visitors to see. A man who now lives abroad gave us this house, which used to belong to his grandparents, and so we were able to begin.”
Today, the Museum of Bakhdida has its own Facebook page and has been enjoyed by both citizens and tourists, who have started to come here from elsewhere in Iraq, but, also, very occasionally, from abroad.
Returning After War and Exile
The current population of Qaraqosh numbers about half what it was ten years ago: from 60,000 to 30,000. Many of those who spent their “exile” in Iraqi Kurdistan during the war were able to find some stability, a job, a school for their children, a house to rent. For many, it has not been easy to go back home, with no savings or employment prospects. The region still lacks large businesses or factories, and the only opportunities for employment lie in commerce or agriculture. Those whose houses were damaged have not received aid for reconstruction, so they must make do with their own means. Many decided it was not worth it, and many of those who returned now live in conditions of extreme poverty.
Sarah and the Sheqaq Neighborhood
Such has been the case for the people of Sheqaq, a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. Here, the Assyrian Church owns much of the accommodation, so rent is largely symbolic, only a few thousands dinar a month. For many, including the disabled, widows with children, and large families without stable income, it is the only way to guarantee a roof over their heads.
Immediately after liberation, a group of former residents returned alongside Father Jalal, a Christian priest who had spent the war years in Erbil, having managed to rescue the most ancient and precious sacred texts he could find while making his escape. These days, Jalal lives in Italy, but he has left a sign of his passage: the belltower that a group of Italians and a Rogationist congregation had donated to “his” refugee camp in Ankawa, a Christian suburb of Erbil, which has now been moved to Qaraqosh, where the bell tolls once again.
Sarah, 60, is a frequent visitor of this neighborhood. Along with a group of residents, she has created a volunteer association to help the city’s most vulnerable inhabitants.
“I know each and every one of these men and women, my friends and I try to provide them with essentials, clothes, toys for children, school supplies,” Sarah says. “We help as best we can, sometimes just by offering a little comfort, or a friendly chat. Many here are losing hope, because they’ve realized that starting over will be an uphill struggle. There are no services, no jobs. We can help each other but it is hard to imagine a future.”
Today, Sarah visited a family with three children. The eldest will celebrate her first Communion tomorrow, but her father will not be able to witness the event, due to an illness that has left him bedridden. His wife, Hanna, must care for him day and night. She has tried to earn a few extra dinars with cleaning, but she cannot leave the house for long. Sarah takes care of their shopping, which she delivers to them in person. Today she brought them tins and frozen meat. She asked what medicines the man needs, and left Hanna a little money she gathered from her network of volunteers. It will not last long, but it will be helpful all the same.
“It is now routine for me to take care of these people,” she says. “We began in 2017, when those returning from Qaraqosh were trying to gather materials and workers to rebuild their houses. Many of us found that tunnels had been dug in our houses, digging in between the walls. The Islamic State militias had built a complex of tunnels in order to move around the city without ever having to be out in the open. In so doing, they gutted our houses. Some had been used as weapons depots, others for medicine, others had been turned into prisons or military bases. It was a lot of work to restore them to as normal state, and in some ways we still haven’t. Those who still haven’t found a job, those with health problems, continue to live on the margins. That’s why so many have been thinking of leaving again.”
To Leave or to Remain
The war’s most challenging legacy has been the sense of uncertainty, which follows even those who have managed to rebuild, replaster, refill their houses with flowers. The nightmare of suddenly having to escape to avoid being killed or imprisoned has left its mark on everyone. Especially the young.
Joseph is a medical student who has resumed his studies at the University of Mosul. “I remember it like it was yesterday,” he says. The night we escaped, it was me, my youngest brother, and my parents. We didn’t even have time to think about what we should bring with us, we just left with what we had on us. We walked for hours, in the dark, having to go through fields because the roads weren’t safe. If we’d left only a few hours later, we wouldn’t have made it. Later we found out that the militias had come and destroyed everything. We were terrified. When the war was over, I couldn’t wait to go back home, but it continues to be very difficult to live there, and once I graduate I hope to move to Europe, because I can’t envision a future here. It pains me greatly, but I think that for someone my age, the only solution these days is to leave.”
Radio Salam, Peace and Inclusion
On September 26, 2023, almost one year ago, another tragedy hit this community that was already struggling to find stability in the aftermath of the war: during a wedding celebration, a fire claimed 114 lives. From then on, the number of people leaving has only gone up.
“It was hard for us all,” says Said Dawud, director of Radio Salam, Qaraqosh’s Christian radio. “Almost every family lost a relative or a friend, or an acquaintance. It was like we were going back to the war days. But we will overcome this challenge, too.”
Dawud has never surrendered. When he and his colleagues had to leave their radio studios behind in 2014, he moved to Erbil, where he continued to tell the stories of the refugees, of the Christian community persecuted by the Islamic State.
In 2017, he was among the first to return, restoring the recording suite, raising funds to buy new computers, sound mixers, and other recording equipment.
“Today we don’t just reach the air waves, but we also stream our programs,” he says. “Our programs aren’t just about religion; they’re also about social themes more broadly and inclusively. It makes us happy to know that the majority of our listeners follow us from the south of the country, from Basra, which is a Muslim city. We act as a bridge between the North and the South, because the problems we all face are often more similar than one would think. Economic crises, environmental crises, our country’s chronic instability. As long as we can speak to all, from a city seen as a place for a minority, we will have a reason to stay.”
Cover photo: The Monastery of St. Benham in Karemlesh, a suburb on the outskirts of Qaraqosh, damaged by ISIS and now restored. Photo by Ilaria Romano, all reproduction rights reserved.
