An Iraqi nun has appealed for international aid to protect the country’s Christian community as she detailed how the civil authorities in the war-torn nation have failed to do so time and again.
In testimony given to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee in the US capital of Washington, DC, on Wednesday, Sister Diana Momeka, of the Dominican Sisters of St Catherine of Siena, told of how after a bomb was detonated at their convent in Mosul in 2009, local civilian authorities failed to respond, forcing the convent to move to Qaraqosh.
Sister Diana Momeka was one of a number of witness who testified before the US House Foreign Affairs Committee in Washington, DC, this week about the so-called Islamic State’s attacks in Iraq. PICTURE: www.freeimages.com
She told of how as the so-called Islamic State invaded the Nineveh Plain in June last year – where Qaraqosh is located – and demanded Christians make the choice of either converting to Islam, paying a tax known as jizya or leaving their cities “with nothing more than the clothes on their back”, the region “emptied of Christians”.
“(S)adly, for the first time since the seventh century AD, no church bells rang for Mass in the Plain of Nineveh,” she said.
Sister Momeka told the committee that from June last year, more than 120,000 people found themselves displaced and homeless in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, “leaving behind their heritage and all they had worked for over the centuries”.
“This uprooting, this theft of everything that the Christians owned, displaced them body and soul, stripping away their humanity and dignity,” she said.
“(T)o add insult to injury”, both the Iraqi and Kurdish governments have been “at best modest and slow” in their reaction,” Sister Momeka said.
“Apart from allowing Christians to enter their region, the Kurdish government did not offer any aid either financial or material,” she said. “I understand the great strain that these events have placed on Baghdad and Erbil, however, it has been almost a year and Christian Iraqi citizens are still in dire need of help. Many people spent days and weeks in the streets before they found shelter in tents, schools and halls.
“Thankfully, the church in the Kurdistan region stepped forward and cared for the displaced Christians, doing her very best to handle the disaster. Church buildings were opened to accommodate the people; food and non-food items were provided to meet the immediate needs of the people; and medical health services were also provided. Moreover, the church put out a call and many humanitarian organizations answered with aid for the thousands of people in need”.
Sister Momeka said while most people are now sheltered in small, prefabricated containers with some in homes, overcrowding has increased tensions and conflicts, even within families.
“There are many who say ‘Why don’t the Christians just leave Iraq and move to another country and be done with it?'” Sister Momeka told the committee. “To this question we would respond, ‘Why should we leave our country ” what have we done?'”
“The Christians of Iraq are the first people of the land. You read about us in the Old Testament of the Bible. Christianity came to Iraq from the very earliest days through the preaching and witness of St Thomas and others of the apostles and church elders.
“While our ancestors experienced all kinds of persecution, they stayed in their land, building a culture that has served humanity for the ages. We, as Christians, do not want, or deserve to leave or be forced out of our country any more than you would want to leave or be forced out of yours.
“But the current persecution that our community is facing is the most brutal in our history. Not only have we been robbed of our homes, property and land, but our heritage is being destroyed as well. ISIS has been and continues to demolish and bomb our churches, cultural artifacts and sacred places like Mar Behnam and Sara, a fourth century monastery and St Georges Monastery in Mosul.
“Uprooted and forcefully displaced, we have realised that ISIS’ plan is to evacuate the land of Christians and wipe the earth clean of any evidence that we ever existed. This is cultural and human genocide. The only Christians that remain in the Plain of Nineveh are those who are held as hostages.”
Sister Momeka said the loss of the Christian community from the Plain of Nineveh “has placed the whole region on the edge of a terrible catastrophe”.
“Christians have for centuries been the bridge that connects Eastern and Western cultures. Destroying this bridge will leave an isolated, inculturated conflict zone emptied of cultural and religious diversity. Through our presence as Christians, we’re called to be a force for good, for peace, for connection between cultures.”
She appealed for the international community, and, in particular the US, to help “restore, repair and rebuild the Christian community in Iraq” through the liberation of their homes from IS, a coordinated effort to rebuild destroyed buildings and infrastructure – including churches and monasteries, and encouraging enterprises that contribute to the rebuilding of Iraq and inter-religious dialogue.
“I am but one, small person ” a victim myself of ISIS and all of its brutality,” she told the committee. “Coming here has been difficult for me – as a religious sister I am not comfortable with the media and so much attention. But I am here, and I am here to ask you, to implore you for the sake of our common humanity, to help us. Stand with us as we, as Christians, have stood with all the people of the world and help us. We want nothing more than to go back to our lives; we want nothing more than to go home.”
Sister Momeka’s visit to the US was sponsored by the Institute for Global Engagement and the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative.
