Murder and fear force minorities from Mosul

Here are the personal accounts of a number of Christians who fled Mosul over the past few weeks because of targeted attacks against members of their minority community.

Abu Feras, 54, truck driver. He has a wife and two daughters aged 8 and 4. This is his story:
I have been living in Mosul for 30 years with my Muslim brothers with no problems. Then on the night of October 9, one of my Muslim neighbours noticed that there were people asking about whether there were Christians living in the area. Our neighbours said they were worried about us. They invited us to their house or to flee. We decided to leave with four other families.
I do not know who did this. We do not have any enemies. Maybe it is politically motivated, we just don’t know, we have no evidence.
We went to a church in Bartella because we had no where else to go. My daughters were excited when we left Mosul at first because they thought we were going on a picnic. In contrast, I was thinking, where am I going? God willing things will get better and we will not have to stay here beyond the end of the month.

Um Rana, 39, standing in a line for food parcels at the village of Telkif, said:
They are killing us in Mosul. We received a threat on our mobile phone. We were told that we either had to give 30,000 dollars or we would be killed. We left 15 days ago. We are renting a house here, my husband and I and our four children. I am not thinking about going back at the moment but should things improve then I will.

Abu Manam, 40, also in the aid queue, said:
I was told to flee Mosul because they were threatening Christians. I received a note through my gate that read either leave or be killed. So I locked up my house and left with my wife and two young children.
It is very difficult. We left our house and I left my work. Now we are just sitting and waiting. I am thankful that we are getting this aid. No one knows who is behind this, maybe the Kurdish intelligence. I have lived in Mosul my whole life. I will only return when I am sure that it is safe.

The Christians are not the only minority group being forced to flee Mosul. Here are some stories from a group of Shabaks I encountered.

Hussein Mohsen Ismael, 66, a truck driver in Bartella, said:
It was October last year and my family and I were living in east Mosul.
My brother Mohamed Saleh was sitting by the gate of his house. A group of masked gunmen pulled up and took him away in their car. The next day they killed him and dumped his body.
Subsequently, we received a number of threats. We do not know who they were from. The following month, the situation became unbearable so we packed our belongings and fled our house along with two other Shabak families.
I was devastated at the death of my brother, I believe at the time if I had owned a weapon I would have killed myself.
People have since broken into my house and written on the walls that it cannot be sold or rented, it belongs to the Islamic State of Iraq.

Hussein Ali Jasem, 23, lived in the same part of Mosul. He said:
My uncle went to the shops on the morning of January 1, 2007.
Two or three cars pulled up close to him filled with armed men. He started to run. They gave chase in the vehicles. He dodged into a small alley. Three of them men stepped out of the cars and chased him on foot. They shot him dead with two machine guns and a pistol. They also took his ID, money, mobile, all his belongings.
We do not know who did this.
They called us later to threaten us. They said unless we left in a couple of days we would be next.
We left straight away without bringing our furniture and moved to a half-built house in Ali-Rash, a small village outside Mosul. We do not have water or electricity. There are not even any pavements. There are no services at all.
I have two children, both girls, one is 2 and the other is two months. If the situation becomes stable we wish to go back to our houses and our jobs.

Juida Abdal is a 50-year-old widow living in a tiny, stone shack in Ali-Rash village, with three sons and one daughter. Her husband was executed in Mosul in February 2007 by unknown gunmen. She said:
The conditions here are very difficult as you can see. We have to walk a long way to fetch water. There is no electricity. I wish I could go back to Mosul.
I was devastated when I lost my husband.

Mahmood, 17, her eldest son, added:
They killed my father, Ali Mahmood Ali, in February last year. He was a builder. As a result, we are stranded in this village. I cannot afford transport to go to school so I have to walk the 4 kilometers there and back each day.
Our old house had four rooms, including two bedrooms. It was much better than here.

[Picture 1: A Christian family in hiding in a town in the Nineveh Plains. They do not want to be identified for fear of recognition;
Picture 2: Children of families sheltering at a churchyard in Bartella town, in the Nineveh Plains north of Mosul;
Picture 3: A box of food aid. Boxes were being handed out to displaced Christians in Telkif village;
Picture 4: A church in al-Kosh, a town in the Nineveh Plains up the road from Telkif;
Picture 5: The photograph of a Shabak house that was destroyed by insurgents;
Picture 6: A young man leaning on a wall made of tyres in the impoverished village of Ali-Rash;
Picture 7: Juida Abdal cries as she remembers her dead husband;
Picture 8: Mahmood, her son, stands in the main room of their dilapidated shack in Ali-Rash.]

Comments

[Christian]

The price of ignoring Al Sadr til it was too late. He has fought and beaten the US to some.The porous borders are helping jihadists but a Fundamental Islamic state joined to Iran is becoming more and probable. As long as there are huge no go areas Al Sadrs men can act with impunity. They currently have enough supporters in Police and other official bodies to make it become a reality. Mosul is biggest surprise to me personnally so far as Kurdish autonomy seemed an obtainable goal but the reality it appears, as usual, isn't so pretty. The jostling of various factions inevitably leads to Mosuls minority areas becoming a focus for some to make their point. Is any sort of solution possible? Campbell and Blair knew this was an adventure but were blinded by the lights, a most un english state of affairs. Did ANY foreign office diplomat think it was a good idea? Campbell and his iron grip and bullying ways seems the only one to have got off scot free yet who played such a significant role.No index linked pension and joining the dinner speaking, tv circuit for people fleeing from their home. Seeing these people join the huge (growing)list of collateral damage is as heart breaking as it is aggravating and brings the whole anger back about the whole Iraq experience and the political machinations that prompted it.
Great blog and worthwhile reporting.

[boredwell]

April '07 the Sunni attacked a bus in Ninevah and killed 23 Yazidis. Assyrian Christians, Iraqis, Chaldeans, Jews, Arabs, Syrian Catholics and Jacobites; Nestorians Sumerians and Turkoman make up the minority population. The Kurds are eager to consolidate their prosperity with power with oil-rich Kirkuk. The Kurds are Sunni, hate the Iraqi and as muslims seek to dominate and destroy the others religious and ethnic groups they consider outside their sphere. They want and will fight for a Kurdish Homeland much as the Israeli's did 60 years ago. This round of intimidation is the first cycle in the process of what may become systematic persecution. They've been low profile in the media but they've had time to lay their plans. They will initiate their offesive, one at a time in order to gauge the military's counter attacks. Knowing we are too busy elsewhere: the moment is ripe and the Kurds will take advantage and seize the moment.