"In Damascus to Escape the Iraqi Nightmare"

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Damascus to escape the Iraqi nightmare

A million Iraqis fleeing from their country have found refuge on the outskirts of the Syrian capital. Stories and images from a hidden exodus that involves tens of thousands of Christians. And is hastening the extinction of Christianity in the land from which Abraham departed. Reportage

by Gianni Valente

(Valente begins by describing an Iraqi girl, Rita, who sings in the choir, and her parents on their way to Mass at the Church of Saint Theresa in Damascus. They arrive at the church, where the benches are already crowded with people singing melancholy litanies.)

"Wissam, who plays the violin at mass, is also in the choir. They wanted to kill him just because he’s tall, has a clear complexion and could be mistaken for an American. They went to find Malad also, the lute player who now makes ends meet by finding a music lesson to give here and there, to kidnap him for ransom. They fled in what they were wearing, together with their parents and their many sisters (they have five each), and are considered lucky. When at the end of the mass the prayer for the dead is read, the church rustles with suppressed sobs. Everyone has some recent death to mourn, some loved one lost in the Iraqi slaughterhouse of bombs, gunfights, disappearances. Outside the church, men and women crowd together to read the list of the families that this week can collect the oil and sugar ration. The sacristy has become a store of goods vital to the escapees from the new “democratic” Iraq. Milk-powder and rosaries, gas cylinders and holy pictures of Mary, blankets and candles for the saints. «This is a good time to taste the comfort that Jesus Christ gives us, we who have nothing anymore, and to God can offer only our heart. Thy Kingdom come, and give us today our daily bread», Father Yussif preached from the pulpit, his eyes glazed with weariness, he who fled like all the others when they told him that his name was on the list of those condemned to death. On the parvis, they hand out sweets and little cakes to those coming out. George tells of wars to export democracy seen from below: «I wouldn’t know what to say about high politics. Saddam was certainly a bad person. But now we all know that there was something worse». "

<snip>

"In Jaramana, the small office of the CARITAS littered with trayfuls of cards and photos gives the impression of a willing lifeboat manned by brave people overwhelmed by a storm bigger than themselves. Sister Antoinette sums up the situation of the Christians fleeing Iraq in a strong but effective image: «There the Sunni are now kidnapping and killing only Shiites, while the Shiites kidnap and kill only Sunni. But both the Shiites and the Sunni are kidnapping and killing Christians». In the rending tribal war in Iraq let loose by western intervention they feel they are the most helpless target, the predestined victims. People, houses and possessions at the mercy of barbarity. Without barricaded neighborhoods for resistance, without militias and powerful clans to ask for protection."

"In the Massaken Barzi district, in the small building refitted as a church and dedicated to Saint Abraham of Ur of the Chaldees, father of all believers, the collective tragedy fragments into individual stories of escape. There is Jalal, who worked in a sports center north of Baghdad and had to sell house and car to pay ransom to his daughter’s kidnappers. There is little Martin, who lost the power of speech for two years after they had tortured him so as to tape his screams and send it to his father. There is Nader, a huge man who worked for the oil companies, also kidnapped and released only after handing over 20,000 dollars. «Our money must have whetted the appetite of our neighbors. They kidnap the Christians because they know that many of us have relatives abroad ready to pay the ransom». But it is not only social visibility that stirs envy and criminal hatred. The husband of Sherma, a thirty-year old widow, was killed because he worked as an interpreter for the American companies. And the religious matrix of the invaders has furnished facile pretexts for the fanatical brutality of the Muslims. «They said we were servants of the Crusaders, they made my daughters wear the veil, they sent threatening letters: either you go or we’ll slit your throats», says Alisha. They say that in the last months the peak of new violence came after the Regensburg speech: «They threatened us: nobody goes into church until the Pope apologises to the Muslims. And they said that for us it was over there: get out, ask your Pope for asylum». Word of mouth spoke of some priests and various young Christians being killed in reprisal after Regensburg. Michel, a taxi-driver escaped from Mossul, is not afraid of appearing homesick: «Believe me, friend: before the war we lived in peace. We worked, and went home safely». Nobody raises objections. Almost all of them agree. «Because every war stirred up around these parts is always a war against the Christians, they are always the first to pay», Robert, a Syro-Catholic, an unsentimental tour operator from Aleppo, says bitterly.

"In the mass of Iraqis exiled in Syria the Christians – Chaldeans, Syrians, Armenians, Orthodox – are at least forty thousand. The “rogue state”, always in the sights of the US administration, is for them a kind of promised land, the best place to run if you are a person who carries the name of Christ. They crowd into the Damascus neighborhoods of Jaramana, of Tabbaleh, of Massaken Barzi or of Dwela. «When someone new arrives, the families go up to the sanctuary to thank God and Our Lady for a happy end to the journey», says Toufic Eid, the parish priest of the church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus in Maalula, the hill village where they still speak Aramaic, as did Jesus. «But then they also ask that their life as refugees be made easy, because easy it isn’t»."


http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=13516


A million Iraqis are refugees on the outskirts of Damascus. Forty thousand Iraqi Christians are exiled in Syria alone. Why are the predominantly Christian nations who started this war not helping these people? Especially the country led by the man who said Jesus changed his heart. The Muslim refugees who have fled to Syria must be whatever Syrians are, whether Shia or Sunni, and presumably can go to other Muslim countries as well, but where are the Christians supposed to go? How long before the Syrians turn against them? The economy in Syria is very bad, unemployment high, Syrians are bound to resent the refugees eventually if they don't already.

[DemBones DemBones]

1. I'm kicking this because

it's only gotten 8 views and it's important, IMO. The fate of these refugees is very disturbing.