The drive from Qaraqosh to Erbil usually takes about 40 minutes. In mid-2014, the trip took closer to four hours, thanks to a highway snarled with thousands of cars fleeing a terrorist group with a reputation for beheadings.
That scene of fear and disarray is one of many that have become common in northwestern Iraq with the rise of the extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Several Dominican Sisters from Springfield visited Iraq earlier this month and saw firsthand the ongoing humanitarian crisis there.
“We went there to be in solidarity with our Dominican family, to let them know that they are remembered and loved and cared about,” said Sister Marcelline Koch of the Dominican Sisters of Springfield. “We also went to experience the situation to see if there were any responses we could make.”
Koch says a convent of Iraqi Dominican Sisters based in Qaraqosh, near Mosul, evacuated as ISIL approached from the west and headed east toward Erbil, the capital city of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq. The Dominican Sisters had only a half-hour to grab their most essential belongings and flee in the middle of the night, Koch says.
Many of the “internally displaced people” in Iraq – they aren’t technically refugees until they leave their home country – are Christians, although members of the minority Yazidi ethnic group and some Muslims also fled. The displaced people have taken shelter in tents, cinderblock houses, caravans and even an unfinished mall in the Christian city of Ankawa, a suburb of Erbil. They sleep on foam mats when available, and as many as 15 people may share a single-room shelter. Most have no indoor plumbing, and those with electricity deal with regular blackouts, often during the near-freezing nights.
Koch tells stories of heartbreak resulting from the crisis. She says it’s not uncommon for displaced people to get phone calls from their former neighbors taunting them about taking over their businesses and looting their houses. While in Iraq, she heard of a handful of churches that were taken by ISIL being converted into prisons and torture chambers. Abduction is an ever-present danger in ISIL territory, and one elder at a displacement camp told the visiting Dominican Sisters that his people would not sing until their abducted women are returned.
Koch says her Iraqi sisters describe the toll on displaced people by saying, “Their faces have changed. They don’t look the same.”
Still, there are glimmers of hope. One wealthy man in ISIL-controlled Mosul purchased as many abducted women as he could from the terrorist group and then returned them to their families, Koch said. Additionally, relief groups working in Kurdistan have hired displaced people to build shelters, run health clinics and perform other much-needed functions.
Even if ISIL is forced out of Iraq, displaced people won’t be able to simply return home, Koch says. Many of their homes have been destroyed, and some villages have been planted with landmines. Additionally, there is a lack of trust between the displaced and their former neighbors who looted their homes and businesses.
“There is a hope and a longing to return, but there’s also reality,” she said. “They can’t go back unless there’s someone to protect them.”
Despite the threat of ISIL to the west, Koch says she never felt unsafe in the areas her group visited. She was, however, overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis and the fact that similar situations exist in Syria, Nigeria and several other countries around the world.
“This is happening in so many places,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
For information on relief efforts in Iraq, visit the Dominican Sisters’ website at www.springfieldop.org or Catholic Relief Services at www.crs.org/iraq.
Contact Patrick Yeagle at pyeagle@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Jan 29 – Feb 4, 2015.
