By J.D. Long-García | November 6, 2008 | The Catholic Sun

DAMASCUS, Syria — Jan George Esho became the head of his household four years ago when his father was killed in Iraq. Esho said his father was shot for being a Christian.

The Catholic family received threats at their house in south Baghdad. The terrorists gave them five days to leave. They did, but their aunt, Assima Koka, stayed behind. She was beaten and raped.

“They told us this is the first thing we’re going to do,” Esho said. “The next thing we do is kill you if you don’t leave the country.”

The family left Iraq for Syria, but Esho’s father returned to Iraq because he could not find work.

On the day his father was killed, Esho, who is in his 20s, received a call from his father’s cell phone.

“You should return to Iraq to die like your father,” the person said. It was 4 a.m.

Esho, his mother, sister and aunt live in a small apartment in Damascus. They pray the rosary together every day. Esho’s younger brother works in Greece and sends money to the family.

“I know God will help me organize my life,” Esho said. “I want to begin a new life. My life has ended.”

One thing he is certain of, though, is that the family will not return to Iraq. Esho’s story is common among Iraqi Catholic refugees. Some estimate 40 percent of the country’s Christians are living in exile.

“Fundamentalism and extremism have always existed. But Saddam prevented them from taking power,” said Michel Kasdono, director of the Beirut Chaldean bishopric Office of Research and Information.

“Saddam didn’t do anything to transform society,” he added. “He just suppressed fundamentalism with terror.”

The fundamentalism and persecution of Christians that broke out after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 has led to the steady exodus of Christians from Iraq, Kasdono said.

That’s the reason Moafaq Butrus Habib Arab, a Chaldean Catholic, is living in Lebanon. His brother was killed in Iraq and his son was shot in the head and is now mentally disabled.

“We don’t have a future in Iraq,” Arab said. “The Muslims see us as a curse against Islam.”   

Life in Lebanon has been difficult, he said. It’s been hard to find a job and his savings are running out.

His family is receiving help from Caritas Internationalis — a Catholic outreach. His son and his niece, who has brain cancer, are receiving treatment thanks to Caritas.

Despite the family’s struggles, they won’t return to their native land.

“Even the middle class families live in poverty,” Kasdono said of the refugees in Lebanon. “They can’t cope with life here. Many of their children go to work.”

Wassan Badr Wartan, a Syriac Catholic woman discerning religious life, tried to stay in Iraq with other young adults.

“For you, you see it on the television or read it in the newspaper,” she said of the chaos engulfing the country. “For me, it was my life. I know the priests. I served in those churches. The situation was worsening and right now it’s a problem to say you’re a Christian in Iraq.”

A new hope

While Iraqi refugees place their hope in starting new lives in the West, Middle Eastern Church leaders want them to stay in the region.

“Our dream is to have people stay in Iraq, not go to the outside,” said Chaldean Bishop Michel Kassarji of Beirut. “We cannot say that under Saddam Hussein it was good. But there was security. It’s not any better now.”

Under Hussein’s dictatorship, Chaldean Catholics and other minority religions were protected from Islamic fundamentalism, Bishop Kassarji said. Hussein’s downfall resulted in the removal of this protection.

“We need to ensure security and create jobs for our Iraqi people,” the bishop said. He felt these measures would draw people back to Iraq, instead of away from it.

Middle Eastern bishops believe that refugees who stay in the region will eventually return to Iraq. But they also realize how traumatic the way has been for refugees.

“I don’t want to say it’s hopeless,” Kasdono said. “But the Church efforts failed to reverse the migration. We’ll have half a million forced to live trapped in neighboring countries. It will be the end of Christianity in Iraq.”

Catholic humanitarian efforts are caught in the middle. But they know where the refugees stand.

“There’s no circumstances under which they would go back,” said Mark Schnellbaecher of Catholic Relief Services in Lebanon. “So many Iraqis have this story — they saw their son beheaded after they paid a ransom [for example]. They’re unlike other refugees who don’t experience direct violence.”

Catholic Relief Services has been lobbying for more resettlements in the United States. This year, the country is upping its quota from 12,000 to 20,000.

But 20,000 is a small number when compared to the estimated 1.6 million Iraqi refugees living in the Middle East. While a fraction of the refugees are Christian, many will not be resettled abroad.

A Western threat

Chaldean Bishop Antoine Audo of Aleppo, Syria, said the Iraq War aggravated ongoing tension in Middle East over Israel. 

“In a sense you cannot overstate what that means to the Muslim world — this situation of injustice in front of the West,” the Jesuit bishop said. “The Arab world is being humiliated by the West — by the Christian, by the Jew.”

Islam is defending its values against a society that it believes has lost its faith and morality, the bishop explained. Fundamentalism is thriving because Islam feels attacked by the West in Israel and Iraq.

“Religion is taking the place of thinking,” he said. “Now in all the Muslim countries, there are waves of fundamentalism.”

But Bishop Audo doesn’t believe Christians should flee this situation. Christians have a special vocation in the Middle East because they respect the freedom of others — a concept he said is sometimes problematic in the Middle East.

In a tribal society, like Iraq, the individual is defended by the group, the bishop said. When the reigning faction changed after Hussein’s demise — from Sunni to Shia — the Christians were left out.

“Without a real authority, the Christians became very weak, no longer having a state to defend them,” he said. When Christians began working for the American military forces or even for American companies, it became easy to blame them for Iraq’s woes.

“This is our country. We’ve been here from the beginning,” the bishop said. “We have to do what we can to stay. I am doing all my work to prepare the Christian community to learn to live with the Muslim community — because it’s important for the Church in the world to have this continuation in history.”

A new Iraq

The Christian refugees are also vital for the future rebuilding of Iraq, according to a spokeswoman from the Iraqi embassy in Syria — where most Iraqi refugees reside. 

“Iraq needs every single Iraqi back,” she said. She spoke on the condition of anonymity.

In addition to being displaced in the region, Iraqis are also finding refuge in the West and in more peaceful places in Iraq — mostly the Kurdish north. Despite ongoing strife, the embassy spokeswoman said the war was worth it.

“We suffered decades of dictatorship and mass graves. All religions were persecuted,” she said. “Many people in Iraq asked that Saddam be removed by force.”

Syrian community leaders believe three out of four Iraqi refugees will return, the spokesperson said. The Iraqi government is offering refugees $1,000 to come back to the country. It will also pay the first six months’ rent for the repatriating families.

Returning Iraqis will also be offered their old jobs back and people without jobs will be assisted with conditional grants, the spokeswoman said.

The Iraqi Student Project is also working to send Iraqi immigrants back. The program places college-age Iraqi students at U.S. universities. Students get a tuition waiver and return to Iraq for the rebuilding process after graduation.

“The refugees are working long hours for low wages,” said Gabe Huck, on staff with the Damascus-based program. A college education will help bring those wages up.

There are currently 14 students at U.S. universities thanks to the program. They’re hoping for 30 next year.

The student project offers support groups and helps Iraqis learn English. The project also prepares students for college entrance exams.

“It’s not about people with grand hopes,” Huck said. “It’s about ordinary kinds of things that these people work for. They deserve an education that the chaos and the violence unleashed by the invasion stole from them.”

The Iraqis — who want to be doctors, engineers and computer programmers — will share their Western education with the new Iraq. But Theresa Kubasak, another Iraqi Student Project staff member, hopes U.S. students will also benefit from the program.

“These kids will break down stereotypes,” she said. “They’ll share the 20 million small ways their lives have been forced into unhealthy paths.”

Caught in the middle

“It’s different here from Iraq, but it’s safer,” said Thair Bajhat Mikah, a Catholic refugee in Aleppo. Terrorists killed his brother and threatened his own life twice. He is in Syria legally, but is not allowed to work.

The Syrian government refers to refugees as “guests.” While the Syrian government claims 1.5 million Iraqi refugees live in the country, different sources estimated the number to be closer to 800,000. That’s on top of the estimated 400,000 Palestinian refugees that live in Syria.

Not having permission to seek employment, many of the refugees work day labor, in restaurants, in construction, as mechanics or even as prostitutes. Oftentimes children shine shoes to help their families.

“We want to travel outside to live in Europe or Australia, but not here,” Mikah said. “We will not return to Iraq — not now, not in 50 years. It’s not safe there. They’re killing all the Christians.”

Bishop Josef Absi, patriarchal vicar of the Greek Melkite Church in Damascus and president of Caritas Syria, said the Church is dedicated to helping Iraqi refugees. Most of the refugees in Syria are in Damascus.

“We try, but we can’t cover all the needs,” he said. Caritas offers help with food and non-food items, medical assistance and other aid. The bishop said most refugees needed help with rent and other fees.

In Syria, refugees must renew their “guest” status every few months.

“We put our hearts and our efforts to helping them, but we don’t know how long we can make it,” Bishop Absi said. The Catholic Church works with the Eastern Orthodox Church as well as with Protestant communities.

The biggest problem the Church in Syria faces is in offering psychological counseling to the refugees, the bishop said. Culturally, refugees tend to reject psychological therapy. There’s also a shortage of psychologists.

But the Good Shepherd sisters of Syria are trying to provide that help. They help victims of domestic violence and their children, offering a safe place to stay and a hotline.

It’s a good beginning, Bishop Absi said, because the refugees shoulder a heavy emotional burden.

“They’re in a situation where they don’t know the future of Iraq,” he said. “I don’t know for the Muslim people, but for the Christian people, there’s no one to protect them in Iraq.” 

Coming to America

Two years ago, Fares Butras brought his family from Baghdad to Turkey. It was easier for them to get a visa because their daughter has a mental disability. But Butras, who worked in an oil refinery in Iraq, couldn’t find work there.

Thanks to the work of Catholic Charities, Butras and his family now live in Phoenix. Butras, who is quickly picking up English, works at a Denny’s restaurant. He is happy.

“God will continue to bless America for reaching out to us,” he said.

His wife, Marygret, stays at home and cares for their daughter.

“When we arrived, we were still scared of saying what we wanted to say,” she said. Now it’s different.

“America has become our mother. Only a mother can reach out to her children and bring them to her bosom,” she said. “Only a mother would open her heart to them.”

The couple, who attend the Mar Abraham Chaldean Catholic Church, are part of a growing number of Iraqi refugees in the Valley through the work of Catholic Charities. Once resettled, Iraqi refugees will stay.

“America is a dream come true for us,” Marygret said. “If you reach your dream, why would you ever go back?”