Highlights
- One family describes their ordeal escaping religious persecution in Iraq
- Now settled in Australia, the El-Katebs doubt they will ever return to the Middle Eastern country
- They fear for the safety of other Christian refugees
Now in Australia, Manar El-Kateb said she thanked the Lord every day that she and her family were living in a safe place where they didn’t need to worry about the basic necessities of life.
Life wasn't always as settled, she said.
When Mrs El-Kateb left her home in the town of Bagdida, also known as Qaraqosh, in Iraq, she and her husband and, at that time, two children, did not know whether they would ever see their home again, she said.
Her children were asking when they could return home to their toys, but neither she nor her husband had any answers for them, she said.
Mrs El-Kateb and her small family's story dated back to 2014, when she said fear began to creep into their small, Christian town, about 30 kilometres from Mosul.
ISIS attacks on nearby areas had led to Christians expelled from other villages and cities flocking to their small town for help, she said.
Everyone who came to our village had a new story. Christians had been forced to choose between abandoning their religion, embracing Islam or leaving.
As the sounds of bombs and explosions approached, she said she and her extended family decided to leave their home.
She said several hours after leaving the town, a rocket landed in a residential neighborhood, killing two children and a young woman, a sign to the town's residents that the place was no longer safe.
In August 2014, the entire population fled to the Kurdistan region, which was the nearest safe place to seek refuge.
Mrs El-Kateb's mother-in-law with her rebuilt home (left) and hos she had found it (right). Source: Supplied by Manar Alkateb
According to both Christian and international organisations, about 100,000 Christians — or up to a quarter of Christians in Iraq — are believed to have fled towards the Kurdistan region following a 2014 attack by ISIS fighters on Qaraqosh.
In 2019, the Archbishop of Erbil accused British Christian leaders of failing to do enough to defend Iraq’s threatened Christian community.
In a speech in London, the Reverend Bashar Warda said that Iraqi Christians now faced the risk of extinction after years of persecution.
Since the US-led invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, the number of Christians had dwindled by 83 per cent from about 1.5 million to just 250,000, he said.
'Christianity in Iraq is on the verge of extinction': Reverend Bashar Warda.
After Mrs El-Kateb’s family fled with a large number of residents of the town to Erbil, she continued to receive news from her town of how ISIS took control of the houses and seized the property.
She said some of those who occupied the town were former students of her mother-in-law who had worked as a teacher for a long time in and around Qaraqosh.
"My mother-in-law received a call from inside her home from someone who said he was one of her students and told her that if she returned and converted to Islam, she would be safe and her home would be returned," she said.
She described the harshness of life in Erbil and what families there had been through and continued to suffer.
Many Iraqi Christians fled to a refugee camp in neighbouring Kurdistan. Source: Getty Images/Jadwiga Figula
"The government established temporary schools for children there but no one was enthusiastic about studying,” she said.
“The children were staying in temporary homes or apartments packed with families so the circumstances weren’t ideal for study.”
The family moved to Jordan, where they applied to the Australian embassy there in the hope of starting their lives in a new, safer place.
The process took no more than six months, but Mrs El-Kateb said not all of those who submitted their papers were as lucky.
Some families' papers have been accepted in a few months, but others are still stuck in Jordan.
“There are children who have missed years of school because they are there."
There is no accurate account of the number of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, but UNHCR estimates that the number ranges from 750,000 to one million.
After staying in the United States for some time, Mrs El-Kateb said her father-in-law and mother-in-law decided to return to Qaraqosh and rebuild their war-ravaged home.
However, Mrs El-Kateb said she and her immediate family had now settled in Australia.
“I want my children to enjoy their childhood and here we have the most basic human rights met so we can innovate in other areas,” she said.
