Iraqi Christians Still Fear ISIS

While progress has been made in eliminating Islamic State strongholds in northern Iraq, Christians who were forced from their homes and villages during the occupation are still living in fear.

According to Fox News, Christians who fled Nineveh in 2014 are just beginning to make their way back after it was liberated from ISIS control earlier this year. While it should be a momentous occasion, most of the refugees are returning to find their livelihoods and homes in ruins and under new threat from Iraqi forces in the wake of the Kurdish independence referendum in September.

While the Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers provided protection after ISIS was defeated, the area is now considered contested land between the Baghdad Central Government and the Kurdistan Regional Government. Iraqi troops were ordered to take control of the region about six weeks ago, and now the residents are once again living in fear. Before ISIS, about 400 Christian families lived in Bahzani, and now the number is down to about 130.

“The reality is we cannot stay without the U.S. or the U.N. helping to protect Nineveh directly,” Father Afram al-Khoury Benyamen told Fox News after mass at St. George Cathedral, the 133-year-old church located just outside Mosul City. “With international protection maybe we can remain, but if it doesn’t come soon… we go.”

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